


[vore] Bluebunny is a Good Friend

by wolfbunny



Series: Bluebunny Multiverse Cluster [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Non-fatal vore, Soft Vore, Vore, bad consent practices, ecto-flesh, hesitant pred, kemonomimi skeletons because i want to, safe vore, unwilling prey, willing prey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 22:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 31,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfbunny/pseuds/wolfbunny
Summary: Blueberry is a bunny. Edge is a fox.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have the best, most original AUs. Doggertale: Everyone is dogs. Foxerfell: Everyone is foxes. Bunnerswap: Everyone is bunnies. (Doggertale appears in Tastes Like Ketchup.)
> 
> Inspired by [this drabble](http://idontevenknowwhattoputhereugh.tumblr.com/post/167416999835/pandabearbackpack-requested-some-edgeberry-fluff).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adding this warning after reader feedback: There are no sex scenes in this story so the noncon tag doesn't apply, but please consider stopping after the first two chapters if the noncon vibes of unwilling vore are going to give you a bad experience. Chapters 1 and 2 work well as a cute willing-vore stand-alone :3

“Fluffy Bunny!” Blue exclaimed, reaching up to tug the book off the shelf. He was small even for a rabbit, so the over-sized picture book was nearly as tall as him. “I would have thought you’d have something like ‘Slinky Foxy’ in this world instead!”  
  
“You have the same book in your world?” Despite how close he was getting to the interdimensional visitor, Edge wasn’t ready to admit that his brother still read the book to him on occasion.  
  
But Blue didn’t seem to notice his reticence. “Yeah! Papy still reads it to me all the time! I wonder if the story is the same?”  
  
Edge suppressed an instinct to stop Blue as the little skeleton opened the book, sitting on the floor and propping it upright in front of him. The contents might be shocking for a bunny. Then again, maybe it was the same as the one Blue had grown up with after all. You never knew with bunnies.  
  
“Where’s Fluffy Bunny?” Blue frowned at the first page, ears drooping. “This is all about a fox!”  
  
“Fluffy Bunny appears on the next page.”  
  
Blue turned the page and read aloud. “One day he met a bunny who didn’t run away. ‘Hello,’ said the bunny. ‘My name’s Fluffy.’ ‘Hello, Fluffy Bunny.’” He turned to the next page and covered his mouth with a gloved hand to hold in a shocked squeak. “He thought about eating the bunny, like he normally would, but he was curious.”  
  
“What did you expect?” said Edge. “He’s a fox.”  
  
Blue glared up at him. “Not funny, Edge.”  
  
Edge chuckled darkly.  
  
The next dozen pages depicted the fox and bunny exploring the forest together, getting into various non-threatening trouble and having innocent little adventures.  
  
“Hmm,” said Blue, cocking his skull thoughtfully, “it’s not the same story but it’s not all that different either. Except the first part.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah, in my version Fluffy Bunny has some of the same adventures, but with different friends, not—not a fox.” Blue hurriedly turned the page, but if he was looking for a distraction to get the conversation away from fox-rabbit relations, he was disappointed.  
  
Edge read over his shoulder. “One day the fox was very hungry. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fluffy Bunny. ‘I don’t have anything to eat,’ he answered.” Blue was staring, eye sockets wide, at the book, but he turned the page so Edge could keep reading. “‘I’ll help you,’ said Fluffy. ‘Do you like carrots?’ ‘No, I don’t like carrots.’”  
  
Blue’s hand trembled as he reached for the page.  
  
“Are you okay?” said Edge. “We don’t have to finish it.”  
  
Blue looked up at him, blinked once, and set his face in determination. “I want to see how it ends.” His hand was steady as he turned the page.  
  
“‘What do you like?’ asked the bunny. ‘Well, mostly I like bunnies,’ said the fox.” Edge glanced down to see how Blue was handling this turn of events. The little skelebun looked grim, a drop of sweat sliding down his skull. Edge continued reading. “‘Oh,’ said Fluffy Bunny. ‘Then you can eat me!’ ‘You don’t mind?’ ‘No. I said I would help!’”  
  
Blue turned the page. “So the fox swallowed up Fluffy Bunny,” Edge read, catching the book so it didn’t fall over when Blue yelped and dropped it. “Don’t give up now, Blue. Go on to the last page.”  
  
Blue seemed eager to move on from the two-page splash illustration of the fox eating Fluffy Bunny whole. “‘You’re a good friend, Fluffy Bunny,’ said the fox. And later, when he found something else to eat, he let Fluffy Bunny back out.” The illustration didn’t show anything beyond the contentedly full fox. Edge recalled his brother saying once that the last line had been added in recent editions to make the story more palatable—making an irritating pun about Fluffy Bunny being palatable in the process. He decided not to tell Blue any of that.  
  
Blue closed the book, staring at the back cover, his expression unreadable.  
  
“So… What did you think?” Edge ventured.  
  
Blue turned to look at him, quivering. Edge froze. Did Blue need a hug? It seemed like he might need a hug. But would a hug from a fox be counterproductive, considering what had upset him? Maybe he should back off and give him space.  
  
“It’s so beautiful!” Blue burst out, jumping up to wrap his arms around Edge’s neck. “They’re such good friends!”  
  
Edge froze again. “You liked it?”  
  
Blue let go and looked earnestly up at him, tears streaming down his cheekbones. “They trust each other so much!”  
  
“Yes, it’s a…very touching story,” Edge agreed, privately opining that the majority of the trust required was on Fluffy Bunny’s part.  
  
Blue wiped at his tears and then held Edge’s eyes with a piercing gaze. “I would do that for you, you know.”  
  
“You would?”  
  
“Yeah, of course I would! In fact, we should do it! As a demonstration of our friendship—and to bring us even closer!”  
  
Edge had to admit you couldn’t get much closer than that.  
  
“Are you hungry? We could do it right now!” Blue’s ears stood up straight.  
  
“Now?”  
  
“Yeah!” Blue grasped his arms, leaning toward him eagerly. Edge had knelt down to help with the book, but he still towered over the rabbit.  
  
“O-okay,” Edge found himself saying. He had spent a fair amount of energy convincing his rabbit friend that he WASN’T going to eat him. How had it turned out this way? He felt a bit lost—but if they were doing this, then he would take charge. He was the Terrible Papyrus, after all! And his first duty in this situation, he decided, was to make sure his friend was really comfortable with it. “I will be glad to eat you for the sake of friendship! But are you sure you’re not scared?”  
  
“Maybe a little bit, but I trust you just as much as Fluffy Bunny does his friend!” Blue pounded his fist against his ribs, confident. “And if this is how you show trust in your world, I want to participate!” It wasn’t, outside of that one story, but Edge found he didn’t want to disillusion the bunny.  
  
“I…have never done this before.” As much as the idea appealed to him the more he thought about it, Edge felt dishonorable deceiving the rabbit.  
  
That gave Blue pause for a second, but he soon recovered. “Then that’ll make me literally your best friend!”  
  
“You’re not worried I…you won’t make it back out safely?”  
  
“Of course not! Fluffy Bunny was fine in the book!”  
  
Edge’s ears dipped in consternation, but he forced them back up. “Very well! Would you mind taking off your gloves and shoes, first?”  
  
“Of course!” Blue slipped them off and arranged them neatly on the floor next to the book.  
  
Edge sat with his legs folded under him and looked down at the eagerly waiting bunny. Should he pick him up, or should he just lay his skull on the carpet and open his mouth? Neither of them had done this before—he assumed—so he unilaterally decided on the former. He started by placing his hands lightly around the bunny, to let him get accustomed to the idea.  
  
“If you get too scared to continue, just yell,” he said solemnly.  
  
“I won’t! But thank you.”  
  
Edge gently gripped the bunny and lifted him up to face level. The fox was accustomed to hiding his uncertainties behind a show of aggression, but if he did that now it would terrify Blue. The best he could manage was the dangerous calm he adopted when someone had seriously crossed him and normal aggression would be insufficient. That was better than letting on that he had no idea what he was doing.  
  
Blue seemed enthusiastic but nervous. His ears were laid down, but that may have been just for Edge’s convenience. Edge couldn’t allow himself to hesitate any longer. He stretched his jaws as wide as he could, manifesting his tongue, and slid the bunny in head-first. His shirt was dry against the fox’s tongue—perhaps he should have asked him to strip completely—but overall he had a very pleasant rabbity taste. Edge waited a moment to make sure Blue wasn’t protesting, and then pressed his gloved hands against the bunny’s legs, pushing him deeper.  
  
Edge had never swallowed an entire bunny whole, and the thought that he might choke on him and have to spit him back out made him nervous enough to actually choke. But he couldn’t back out now. He pushed Blue deeper, accepting his skull into his throat, and gulped. It wasn’t exactly comfortable having the little skeleton halfway in his throat and half still in his mouth. Generally things were either one or the other. But Edge stayed calm, gulping deliberately to work the rest of his friend into his throat.  
  
It was a relief when he finally swallowed down the little skeleton’s feet, but it wasn’t over yet. The sensation of such a large object traveling down his esophagus was satisfying in a way, but not strictly pleasant. There wasn’t much he could do about it either, as the phantom muscles worked independently, not under voluntary control. Finally, eventually, Blue made it down into the ecto-stomach Edge had summoned for the occasion.  
  
Sighing with relief, Edge curled his skull down to take a look at the bunny through the translucent ecto-flesh. Blue didn’t look terribly comfortable, his eyes squeezed shut, the stomach expanded just enough to contain him snugly. The trip down had to have been just as hard on him, if not worse. As Edge watched, Blue cracked open one eye socket, his perpetual grin relaxing. The bunny tried to move his limbs, pressing on the walls of ecto-flesh around him. It wasn’t a protest, though—he seemed fine. Edge smiled back at him and then stretched out, leaning against the wall. At least it would be a lot easier getting him back out. He didn’t know how the fox in the book had managed it, but as a skeleton, all he had to do was dispel the ecto-flesh holding Blue and the bunny would drop out unharmed.  
  
That could wait for a while, though. “You’re a good friend, Blue,” he said. “And tasty too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My hobbies:  
> 1\. Taking Undertail torture porn and saying "but what if also vore?"  
> 2\. Taking innocent Undertale fluff and saying "but what if also vore?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edge meets Stretch.

Stretch opened the door to his house and saw the fox. His brother had warned him about all of this—that his new friend was a fox, that the foxes were overall bigger than the rabbits, and indeed the fox was so large he had to hunch over to avoid scraping his skull on the ceiling. Stretch had more or less expected that. What he hadn’t expected was for Blueberry to be sitting there inside the monster’s translucent stomach, which was on full display as his armor didn’t cover his midriff at all.  
  
“Frith on a hill! What did you do to my brother?” Stretch summoned a blaster without thinking.  
  
The fox was startled for an instant but smoothly recovered. “You must be Stretch,” he said, as the blaster was charging. “Think about what you’re doing. Do you want to fire that at your brother? He’s fine; he hasn’t been harmed.”  
  
Stretch hesitated, the blaster humming impatiently. It wasn’t made to hold a charge this long without firing.  
  
The fox lowered his gloved hands to his stomach and suddenly Blueberry was sitting on them, free, if perhaps a little damp. Behind him there was nothing but the fox’s spine, as if the ecto-flesh had never existed. “Papy! You’re home early!” Blueberry somehow sounded simultaneously embarrassed and happy to see him. The blaster evaporated, forgotten.  
  
“It’s a good thing, considering I arrived just in the nick of time to stop him from eating you!”  
  
Blueberry laughed. “Papy, you didn’t stop him. He already did it!”  
  
Stretch stared at him. What did he mean by that? He was alive, wasn’t he? This wasn’t some kind of ghostly projection of his brother who was already eaten and digested and oh stars why had Sans ever trusted a fox how could he have let this—  
  
“He was never at any risk,” the fox explained, his voice a calm growl.  
  
“I thought we’d have a little more time before you got back.” Blueberry dropped his gaze and his ears.  
  
Stretch looked at them, blank and uncomprehending. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“This isn’t the first time we’ve done that,” said the fox.  
  
“You’ve done this BEFORE?” The air sparked around Stretch as he barely stopped himself from forming attacks.  
  
“A few times,” Blueberry admitted.  
  
“Get away from him,” Stretch ordered, a long bone materializing in his hand.  
  
“Papy, calm down,” Blueberry pleaded. “He hasn’t hurt me at all.”  
  
“He ATE you.”  
  
“Yes, but it didn’t hurt!”  
  
“He ATE you!”  
  
“All right, I know that sounds bad. Let’s just calm down.” Blueberry finally climbed down from the fox’s hands, approaching his brother with his arms held up soothingly. “We can talk about it over dinner, how about that? Edge is a really good cook.”  
  
Stretch looked down at his brother, up at the fox, and back down. Was he going to let the promise of something other than tacos for once tempt him into letting a fox stay in their house after he tried to—no, after he actually did eat Blueberry? What kind of brother would that make him? On the other hand, Blueberry himself was pleading for him to do so. Suddenly he was just too tired to do anything but let Blueberry take control of the situation.  
  
“Fine,” he sighed. “He can stay for dinner, so long as you—and me—are completely off the menu.”  
  
Blueberry lit up and dragged the fox by the hand into the kitchen.  
  
“Your kitchen is very … small,” Stretch heard the fox say, as he collapsed onto the couch.  
  
“Hmm, yeah. It’s okay, I’ll help! What are we making?”  
  
“Lasagna is my forte.”  
  
“Great! I’ll get the noodles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I wrote more.  
> Red should appear next chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lasagna dinner!

“I can’t believe you’ve been hanging out in a world full of nothing but foxes!”  
  
“It’s not NOTHING but foxes, Papy!”  
  
“Yeah, there are rabbits too…that they eat.”  
  
“Papy!” Blueberry squeaked with outrage but couldn’t actually argue with that.  
  
“There are some wolves, too,” said Edge, picking daintily at his portion of lasagna with a fork that was far too small for him.  
  
“You didn’t say anything until now, Papy.” Blueberry crossed his arms. Where were his gloves? He almost never took them off. “You can’t be prejudiced against monsters just because they’re foxes. We have fox monsters here, too—a few, at least.” That was true, but a few normal-sized fox monsters living in a world run mostly by rabbits were not a threat.  
  
“You didn’t tell me he was a giant fox monster until this morning.” Stretch frowned at the unfairness of Blueberry springing this on him at the last minute. “From a world of giant rabbit-eating fox monsters, what’s more.” He shuddered at the thought.  
  
“Eating rabbits doesn’t necessarily make him a bad monster! You saw just a few minutes ago that he can eat a rabbit without hurting them!”  
  
Stretch clutched his fork so hard he thought he might bend it. He hadn’t touched his food. “Tell that to all the other rabbits he’s eaten.”  
  
Blueberry faltered. Edge continued eating, undisturbed. Blueberry rallied. “He may have hurt rabbits in the past, but he can still be a good monster! Anyone can be good if they try hard enough!”  
  
Stretch narrowed his eye sockets. “So you think he’s not going to eat other rabbits?”  
  
Blueberry froze.  
  
Stretch looked up at Edge. Edge finished chewing before he said, “We hadn’t discussed that.”  
  
Stretch smirked victoriously at Blueberry’s horrified expression. The smaller rabbit turned to the fox, visibly wrestling himself back to calm. “You’re right, Edge. I guess I just assumed.” Stretch relaxed enough to finally try a bite of the lasagna. It was excellent. “We should talk about this,” Blueberry continued. “I guess I might be a little jealous.”  
  
Stretch almost choked. “That wasn’t what I—”  
  
Edge tossed him an amused glance before answering Blueberry. “I suppose I can swear off other rabbits, at least for the time being.”  
  
Blueberry lit up. “Thank you, Edge. Sorry for being demanding.”  
  
Stretch spluttered, nearly falling out of his chair. He had to take a drink of water before he could speak. The others watched, Blueberry with growing concern. Once Stretch was sure he had his brother’s attention, he rephrased his concern. “Sans. What is he going to eat, for nourishment?”  
  
“Oh, that!” Blueberry seemed relieved it wasn’t an actual problem. “Foxes can eat lots of things, actually.”  
  
“Like what?” Stretch directed the challenge at Edge.  
  
“Ah… Mice. Birds. Lizards. Fruit?” Edge listed foods until he found one that pleased Blueberry.  
  
“See? Fruit!” Blueberry puffed out his rib cage in triumph.  
  
Stretch narrowed his eye sockets at the fox. Did he mean actual fruit, or was he making a reference to Sans’s fruity nickname? Edge was, he had to admit, a Papyrus, even if he was edgy and a fox, and a Papyrus from any world at least occasionally came up with a brilliant pun. But in Stretch’s experience, most of them were not so subtle about it.  
  
“All right. Fine.” Stretch sighed in defeat. “But I don’t think you should visit the fox world anymore—”  
  
“Papy! It’s none of your business—”  
  
“—and obviously you’re not allowed to ‘eat’ my brother again.” Stretch glared up at the fox skeleton. Edge returned his gaze impassively.  
  
“Papy!!” Blueberry stood up in protest. “Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean you can tell me what I can and can’t do!”  
  
“I’m not, Sans,” Stretch explained patiently. “I just told you what I think. I told your fox friend what he can and can’t do.”  
  
“You just don’t understand!” Blueberry slammed his fork down next to his half-eaten lasagna and stormed out. He retrieved his gloves and boots from the floor by the couch—so that was where they had been—and went outside, slamming the door.  
  
Stretch looked up at the fox, left sitting awkwardly at the table with him. “I would apologize for the scene, but as I’m sure you can guess, I blame it entirely on you.”  
  
The fox nodded curtly. “He’s probably going to my world right now.”  
  
Stretch’s ears dropped. “Is that safe?”  
  
“No. I’ll go after him.” The fox stood up as much as he could in the too-small room. “I don’t want him to meet any of the other inhabitants of my Snowdin without me there. Especially my brother.”  
  
“I’ll come with you.” Stretch followed as the fox squeezed through the door.  
  
“You’re a liability.”  
  
“I can take care of myself.”  
  
“You’re overconfident.”  
  
“I’ll stay with you then.” Edge seemed honestly concerned about Blueberry, and that was enough for Stretch to trust him at the moment. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”  
  
“Very well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real tragedy is that Stretch didn't get to eat the lasagna.
> 
> Red will show up NEXT time for sure. There are at least 5 chapters.
> 
> Also, I need to pin down the relative sizes of the foxes and bunnies. Blueberry has to be pretty small to fit in Edge's mouth. Papyruses don't have such big mouths X3 (Can't have my kemonomimi skeleton vore fic being *unrealistic* or anything.) So Blue probably only comes up to Edge's knee (not counting ears). I made a quick sketch of relative sizes, and I think Red and Stretch turn out to be similar heights. Since Stretch is so skinny and Red has such a big mouth, he might be able to swallow him after all owo (I have no idea if that will actually happen.)
> 
> The image of Red fox trying to eat Stretch bunny when they're on the same size scale is hilaridorable though!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stretch meets Red.

Sure enough, Blueberry had left clear fresh tracks right to the lab and the machine that allowed the skeletons to cross between worlds. Stretch wished right now that he’d never gotten it working.  
  
There was no sign of Blue in the fox’s lab. It felt odd being in a room that was so familiar and yet off in several ways; everything was bigger—fox size—and backwards. But he shrugged it off, locating the door and praying Blueberry would be waiting right outside.  
  
There were only more tracks. Trusting that Edge was close behind him, he followed them toward the front door, relieved to see the tracks continued all the way there, not intersecting any other footprints or being cut off as if Blue had been snatched away. He had to wait for Edge to open the door.  
  
“Wait, you gave him a key?” How had Blue gotten inside?  
  
“I didn’t want him to sit around outside where any predator could pick him off,” Edge grunted, pulling the door open.  
  
The room inside was dark. Stretch ventured in as Edge turned on the lights. His ears perked up as he made out a form on the couch. But it was too large to be Blueberry. It was another fox, though not as big as Edge.  
  
“Oh, you got another one?” the fox skeleton sneered, picking at his sharp teeth with one distal phalange.  
  
“Stretch, this is my brother, Sans. You can call him Red.” Edge stood up straight to glare down at his brother. “Yes, I’ve brought another rabbit skeleton! Have you seen the first one?”  
  
“Yeah, I saw ‘im. He looked tasty.” Red grinned unpleasantly.  
  
“Sans!”  
  
Stretch’s soul froze. Surely Edge’s brother wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Blueberry…?  
  
“What? ‘s a compliment.” Red sulked.  
  
“You know it makes them uncomfortable to talk like that! Where is he?”  
  
Red slowly and deliberately turned his gaze to Stretch. Stretch did not like the way he was grinning at all.  
  
“Sans!” Edge scolded again.  
  
Red shrugged nonchalantly. “He went up to your room.”  
  
Edge pinned him with another glare as he stalked past to the stairs. Stretch hurried to keep up with the fox’s longer strides.  
  
“Blueberry. That was very dangerous.” Edge was already admonishing the smaller bunny as Stretch caught up and trotted around in front of the fox. There was Blue, sitting on the floor with a large picture book laid out in front of him.  
  
“I figured you’d come after me,” Blue argued.  
  
“I’ve advised you not to be alone with my brother outside of an emergency.”  
  
“He wouldn’t hurt me. He’s your brother!”  
  
Edge seemed unconvinced.  
  
“Sans,” said Stretch. “Please don’t run off like that.”  
  
Blueberry ignored him, standing up to turn a page of the book.  
  
“Sans, I’m sorry. We can talk about this. I just don’t want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger.”  
  
Blueberry looked up at him tearfully. “Okay…” He suddenly brightened. “Come here, Papy. Maybe this will help you understand.”  
  
“What is it?” Subdued after all the scares he’d had today, Stretch joined his brother in looking at the book.  
  
“This is the fox version of Fluffy Bunny.”  
  
“Does that fox eat Fluffy Bunny at the end?” Stretch snorted sarcastically.  
  
Blue jumped. “I can’t tell you the ending! You gotta read the story!”  
  
Edge knelt down on the other side of the book to help them turn the pages more easily as they read the adventures of Fluffy Bunny and his fox friend.  
  
“‘Do you like carrots?’” Stretch read. “‘No, I don’t like carrots.’ Stars above, I was right.”  
  
“Just keep reading,” Blueberry insisted.  
  
They read the rest of the book in silence. Stretch stared at the last page for a minute.  
  
“So what do you think?” Blueberry asked nervously.  
  
Stretch looked up at Edge. “That is absolutely horrifying.”  
  
“No!” Blueberry protested. “It’s not—it’s touching! Look how much they trust each other!”  
  
“The fox doesn’t have to trust Fluffy. What’s he going to do, claw his way out from inside?” Stretch stabbed a finger at the illustration. “And look, the text says the bunny survived, but the picture doesn’t show it at all. It feels so tacked-on!”  
  
Edge shrugged, conceding the point.  
  
“Papyyyy,” Blueberry whined. “Why don’t you understand?”  
  
“I know it seems strange.” Edge was a little more reasonable. “And visiting here is not without risk for ones such as you. But although I am a predator, I can give you my word I won’t harm Blueberry.”  
  
Being caught between a pleading Blueberry and a solemn Edge was wearing away at Stretch’s defenses. The fox did seem serious. Stretch opened his mouth to accept the larger monster’s promise.  
  
“What’s all the commotion about?” Edge’s brother barged in, interrupting him. Red saw Stretch looking at him and treated him to a hungry leer in Blueberry’s direction.  
  
“It’s personal, Sans.” Edge stiffened.  
  
“Hey, how come you get all the bunnies, boss? There are two. One of ‘em should be mine.”  
  
“Blueberry doesn’t BELONG to me, Sans!” Blue flushed cyan at Edge’s words.  
  
“Sure,” Red drawled, unconvinced. “I’m gonna call mine Carrots.”  
  
Blueberry giggled. “It does suit you, Papy!”  
  
“You can’t name him.” Edge was growing progressively irritated. “He already has a name.”  
  
“Here, Carrots,” Red beckoned, running his tongue over his teeth. Stretch took a step backward, keeping himself between Blue and Red.  
  
“Sans, we were having a serious conversation and you’ve interrupted it! Why don’t you go to Grillby’s or something?”  
  
“I just wanted to meet your bun-derful new friend.”  
  
Edge and Blueberry glared at him, synchronized.  
  
“Come on, don’t be shy. There’s nothing to be em-burrow-sed about.”  
  
Stretch couldn’t help but chuckle at that one, even if he was nervous. It was terrible.  
  
Blueberry slapped his forehead in despair at the pun. “See, Papy? You’re a good match. He doesn’t carrot all whether you’re a fox or a bunny.”  
  
Stretch turned to look at Blueberry, so shocked at the privilege of one of his brother’s rare puns that he took his eyes off Red. When he looked back, Red was just standing there near the door, grinning serenely.  
  
“Stretch,” said Edge. “Perhaps if my brother entertains you for a little while, Blueberry and I can discuss some things alone. I’m sure he’ll be on his best behavior, won’t you, S—Red?”  
  
“Sure thing, boss. You two talk over whatever’s eatin’ ya. Carrots and I can chew the fat for a while, yeah?”  
  
Red looked expectantly at Stretch, but didn’t move toward him. Stretch looked around the room, his ears pinned down in anxiety at the prospect of being alone with the less trustworthy of the foxes. Blueberry seemed oblivious. Edge disapproved of the eating puns but not enough to intervene, apparently. Well, he decided, he could always teleport back here if the fox attacked him. He just wouldn’t let him get too close. Maybe he was a good monster, too—for a fox—but just had terrible taste in humor. Stretch could get a good pun out of that. With a reassuring smile at Blueberry, he followed Red out of the room.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding how this all got started:  
> I had pictured regular non-bunny Blueberry introducing his rabbit counterpart to Edgefox, with complete faith that his rabbit self could win over a fox and not get eaten. But that's difficult because I already called the rabbit Blueberry and I don't know what to call regular Blueberry X3
> 
> Perhaps the soulless Bunnerswap Temmie (Temmie fills the roll of Flowey in Underswap, I hear) introduced them just to stir up trouble.
> 
> Or maybe Underlust Sans did it as a joke because it seemed kinky :3 and never expected Bluebunny to actually go through with it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Edge and Blue talk, Red and Stretch "talk."

Stretch followed Red down the stairs, lagging behind at a safe distance. Red walked over to the couch but didn’t sit on it, instead turning to watch Stretch hop down from the last step.  
  
Stretch quailed under his gaze. “What did you wanna talk about?”  
  
“I’m not interested in making small talk with bunnies.” Red licked his teeth again.  
  
Did “small talk” count as a pun? Stretch wasn’t impressed. “Then why did you say—”  
  
“I do wanna get closer with you, if you know what I mean.” Red hunkered down and then pounced.  
  
Stretch teleported across the room. Crap, he probably shouldn’t have revealed the ace up his sleeve so early. But Red didn’t seem surprised as he turned to face him in his new location.  
  
“Teleportation, huh? That’s not very fair for a hare.”  
  
“All’s fair in love and warren,” Stretch shot back.  
  
Red actually laughed. “See, I can’t eat you. You probably taste punny.”  
  
“Yes, I have terrible taste.” Stretch wasn’t sure if he was trading jokes or begging for his life.  
  
“So long as you’re not bitter about it,” said Red, and disappeared.  
  
The fox grabbed Stretch from behind, picking him up like a bride being carried over the threshold, or perhaps a very large ear of corn.  
  
“You can tele—” Stretch stopped mid-word when he saw Red opening his jaws wide. With a gasp, he tried to twist out of Red’s arms, but Red sank his teeth into his hoodie. Stretch flinched, but he found he wasn’t actually hurt—Red had bitten down on the empty space between his ribs and pelvis. He was just dangling by his hoodie from the fox’s jaws, feet and hands almost brushing the carpet. Although they were about the same height—Stretch tall for a bunny and Red short for a fox—Stretch was much slighter and apparently not very heavy. He turned his skull to look at Red; maybe the fox was just teasing him and would let him go now. Red’s eyelights glinted with mischief—predatory mischief. Stretch was sure he was just toying with him as a prelude to something more serious.  
  
Stretch summoned a blaster. He would have to aim it very carefully if he wanted to hit Red and not himself. He focused on Red, concentrating on his location relative to the blaster—Red saw the blaster too, and he looked more amused than alarmed. But the fox did open his mouth and drop Stretch onto the floor. Stretch was about to count that as a win, until he noticed Red had summoned his own blaster. It opened its jaws and dove at Stretch’s construct, enveloping it and—from all appearances—gulping it down.  
  
Stretch watched, trembling, as the fox’s blaster disintegrated back into the ether. The magic he’d been feeding into his own blaster was just suddenly gone, leaving him feeling cold and depleted.  
  
“I never woulda thought a bunny would have a blaster,” Red said, grinning down at him. “That’s kinda hard to swallow.”  
  
Stretch reached for his magic to teleport away, put some distance between them, even if it was futile since the fox could teleport too, but somehow losing his blaster like that had taken a lot more out of him than just firing and dispelling it would have. He wouldn’t be able to teleport or summon any serious attacks until he’d restored his magic a little. A chill ran down his spine as he wondered if that particular blaster was gone forever. He could summon more than one at a time so it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have blasters anymore if he lost one—right? They weren’t unique individuals but just interchangeable constructs of fungible magic, so it shouldn’t matter—but it was a disturbing experience seeing the fox’s blaster eat his own like that.  
  
That was all assuming he even survived long enough for his magic to recover. Red knelt down and pulled him more-or-less upright. “Relax, Carrots. Upset that you couldn’t lick me in a fight?” He held Stretch close and pressed his tongue against the side of the bunny’s skull. Stars, it was huge. “I just don’t understand you bunnies,” Red went on. “Maybe you can help me wrap my head around you.” He pressed Stretch’s skull into his tongue, opening his jaws wider, pushing Stretch in past his pointy teeth—Oh stars, he couldn’t die like this. Edge would probably take care of Blueberry—he hoped—but Blue would be wracked with guilt—probably—wouldn’t he? Stretch wasn’t sure which was worse: Blueberry blaming himself for getting his brother killed with his weird fox obsession, or Blueberry somehow explaining it away and continuing to hang out with the fox who’d eaten his brother.  
  
“SANS! What are you doing?”  
  
Red hurriedly took Stretch’s skull out of his mouth. “Nothin’. We’re having a good time, right, Carrots?”  
  
Stretch just shivered. Red adjusted his grip on the bunny to be more like a comradely arm around the shoulder. Stretch would prefer to be let go entirely, but he couldn’t deny he’d probably just collapse on the floor.  
  
Red jostled him. “Come on, Carrots. Wouldn’t you say we were … having a blast? C’mon, that’s an easy one.” The fox winked, feeding him a pun when he didn’t supply one himself.  
  
Stretch looked up at Edge leaning over the rail at the top of the stairs, silently pleading for him to come save him from his brother. Edge glared down at the other fox disapprovingly, but didn’t descend the stairs. Then Blueberry came out and peered down at them through the gap between the balusters of the railing.  
  
“Red! You can’t tease Papy so much!” the little bunny scolded. He started down the stairs. “I know I tease him a lot, but it’s okay because I’m his brother! You just met him so you gotta be nice!”  
  
“I AM awful pleased to MEAT him,” Red said, giving Stretch a squeeze.  
  
Stretch tried to pull away but the fox was stronger and he was exhausted. That wasn’t even a good pun. “Skeletons don’t have any meat on their bones, you stupid fox,” he muttered.  
  
Red laughed and squeezed him harder.  
  
“Papy, are you crying?” Blueberry finally reached them, Edge following behind him.  
  
Red hooked a finger under Stretch’s jawbone to turn his face toward him. “Aw, sorry if I was too rough with ya, Carrots. I really think this is gonna be a top-tear friendship.” He licked the tears away.  
  
Stretch found a burst of energy to wrench himself out of the fox’s grasp, falling onto his tail on the floor.  
  
“Calm down, Papy, it’s okay.” Blueberry rushed up to him, full of concern, hugging Stretch’s skull to his chest, probably getting fox spit on his bandanna. Stretch would’ve preferred him to take a more defensive stance against Red, but with Edge here they were probably safe for the moment.  
  
“Can we just go home?” Stretch whimpered.  
  
“I think you’ve all had enough excitement for one day,” Edge agreed. “I’ll call you later, Blueberry.”  
  
“Okay,” said Blueberry. “Come on, Papy. We can reheat that lasagna.” Blue tugged at his hoodie, urging him to get up.  
  
Stretch groaned; he didn’t want to think about food right now.  
  
“You’re in snow condition to walk around outside, Carrots,” said Red. “I’ll help.” He plucked the miserable rabbit from the floor and carried him toward the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned a new word today, and it's "baluster." I could have sworn I knew what the spokes of a fence were called, but apparently not.
> 
> Stretch teleporting into Edge's room going "save me!" and then Red playing innocent and Blueberry completely believing him would've been cute too X3
> 
> If you like my version of Fluffy Bunny, I hope you've seen the movie version of Arashi no Yoru ni :3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie night!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's a picture of Red and Blue](http://nom-the-skel.tumblr.com/post/167604793895/characters-from-bluebunny-is-a-good-friend-3) :3

Stretch collapsed face-down on the couch and stayed there until Blueberry came back from the kitchen to get him.  
  
“You’re not eating on the couch. It’ll make a mess,” the smaller rabbit chided. “And you should really take a shower after a fox has been licking you.” It seemed to have slipped his mind that he’d been entirely inside a fox himself.  
  
Stretch had to admit a shower would probably help, but he just groaned.  
  
“Come on, Papy. He didn’t hurt you, did he? You’ll feel better if you eat something.”  
  
Stretch turned his skull so that his face wasn’t pressed into the cushion, trying to decide if eating his blaster counted as hurting him. “What did you and Edge talk about?”  
  
“I’ll tell you if you come sit at the table,” Blueberry wheedled.  
  
“Bribery,” Stretch protested, but pushed himself upright and followed his brother to the table. The lasagna did smell good. He collapsed into a chair and started working up the energy to pick up his fork. “So what did you talk about?”  
  
“Well.” Blue sat down next to him, keeping his eyes on the table. “We agreed that it’s my business if I want to get eaten, but we also want you to be comfortable. So we thought we could all get together socially, for now, so you can get used to their being foxes.”  
  
“Wait. Red too?”  
  
“Well, yeah. We can’t go over to Edge’s house and kick out his brother. And it would be a little rude to invite Edge here and disinvite Red.”  
  
What Red had done to Stretch was more than a little rude, too, but he really couldn’t face explaining it to Blueberry right now. He didn’t want to see betrayal and horror and pity on his brother’s face, and he especially didn’t want to see none of those things as his brother argued that Red couldn’t have done anything that terrible, or it wasn’t really his fault, or whatever it took to preserve his pro-fox worldview.  
  
“We’re planning a movie night,” Blue continued, when Stretch didn’t respond. “I think it’s better to do it at their place, since it’ll be pretty cramped to have two foxes in here, but I also want to watch one of our movies for the first time, since some of the fox movies can be a bit … uncomfortable for rabbits, according to Edge, but we have to figure out how to play our movie on their TV, and I think I can—”  
  
Blueberry chattered about the technical issues while Stretch picked at his food.  
  
“I’m thinking next Saturday, if that works for Edge and Red,” Blueberry concluded.  
  
Stretch felt like his date of execution had just been set.  
  
***  
  
“Why are you so nervous, Papy?” Blueberry pulled his brother toward the lab. “They like you a lot! Red especially seems to share your terrible taste in puns.”  
  
“I know he likes me. That’s what I’m afraid of.” Stretch stumbled through the snow to avoid Blue pulling him over. He was set on going—he couldn’t leave his brother alone with both foxes—but he couldn’t convince his legs it was a good idea.  
  
“Papy, why are you afraid of that?” Blue laughed innocently, opening the door and leaving Stretch to negotiate the stairs while he turned on the machine. Stretch wondered if the machine mysteriously breaking would put a stop to all this. Blue and Edge would still be in contact by their phones, and presumably the machine here being out of commission wouldn’t stop Edge coming over from his side, but it would complicate things. Still, it seemed wrong to interfere in his brother’s interpersonal relations for selfish reasons, and what if the difficulty of going to visit prompted Blue to go stay with Edge permanently?  
  
“Come on, Papy.” Blue interrupted his thoughts, took his hand again, and pulled him through the portal.  
  
Edge was waiting in the lab on the other side. It was an extremely short walk from the lab to the front door, but there was no sense taking risks. Blueberry surprised him by jumping into his arms. “Here’s the movie.” He brandished a plastic DVD case.  
  
“Greetings, bunnies,” he said, recovering quickly. “Follow me.” He turned to ascend the stairs, still carrying Blue. Stretch grumbled and followed after him. He’d hardly noticed how high each step was the last time he climbed these stairs, because he’d been desperate to find his brother. Now each one required a monumental effort to surmount.  
  
Blueberry climbed up onto Edge’s shoulder to look down at Stretch as the fox opened the door. “Are you okay, Papy? Did you want him to carry you, too?”  
  
“No! No, that’s okay.” Stretch shuddered at the memory of Red carrying him to the lab on his last visit.  
  
“Sans! Did you get it working?” Edge called as they entered the house.  
  
“No, boss. It’s still cutting out. Must be a loose connection.”  
  
“I told you you should have tested it before today!” Edge bristled with irritation. “But fear not! I, the Terrible Papyrus, will select a movie appropriate for all audiences, including rabbits.” He glanced at Stretch as he used their mutual name, but seemed satisfied that Stretch might be a Papyrus but not Terrible.  
  
Blueberry hopped down onto the couch as Edge went through the foxes’ rather limited movie selection, leaving Blueberry’s movie on top of the TV. Stretch hopped up next to his brother, and Red sat himself on Blue’s other side. “Sorry, boss,” he said, but he didn’t look sorry. He was grinning hungrily at Stretch. Stretch suddenly wished they’d thought to make popcorn. But then again, Red would probably just eat it suggestively at him.  
  
“All right! This one doesn’t have any rabbits in it at all—that I remember!” Edge announced, turning to join them on the couch as the movie started to play.  
  
Blueberry tugged on Stretch’s sleeve until he leaned down to hear him whisper, “Let Edge sit next to me!” Stretch looked from his brother, eyes bright and cheek bones tinged cyan, to Red, leering at him from the other side of the couch. Why couldn’t Red be the one to move? He’d free up more space.  
  
Blueberry misinterpreted it completely. “You don’t have to sit by yourself,” he said. “Red will sit with you, right?” He turned to make a pleading gesture at Red.  
  
“Sure thing.” Red stood up and gallantly offered his hand to help Stretch off the couch. Stretch forced himself to take it, but couldn’t stop his hand shaking. Red pulled him off the couch with a little more force than strictly necessary, so he could have an excuse to catch him and stop him from falling.  
  
Edge watched all this as if he wasn’t certain what it was all about, then acquiesced to Blueberry’s insistent patting of the seat next to him. Red sat on the floor in front of the couch, keeping Stretch held close to his side. This wasn’t helping Stretch feel more relaxed around the foxes.  
  
The movie was some kind of comedy. Stretch thought he might have seen his own world’s version of it at some point, and perhaps he could have remembered it if not for how distracting it was being pressed up against the fox who had tried to eat him only a few days ago. He glanced over his shoulder at Blue and Edge—Blue had climbed up onto Edge’s shoulder and was whispering something into his ear that made the fox smile.  
  
“Watch the movie, Carrots,” Red said, breathing on his neck. “It’s an exchange of cultures or whatever.”  
  
Stretch wanted to pull up the hood of his sweater so that Red couldn’t do that again, but he couldn’t get his arms free from Red’s embrace. Maybe if he did as he was told and watched the movie, Red would leave him alone.  
  
Another few minutes in, he heard movement on the couch behind him. When he turned to look, he saw Edge had stretched out across the whole couch—although he was so tall that his legs still splayed off the end when his head rested on one armrest. Blueberry was lying on his chest, gazing into his eyes. Stretch frowned. He tried to tell himself he was just annoyed Edge was taking up the entire couch, and he shouldn’t be, because it wasn’t as if he or Red had been going to sit there. It was none of his business if Blue wanted to make bedroom eyes at his fox friend and run his fingers along his fangs and—  
  
“Blue. Please.” Stretch couldn’t just sit there and watch this.  
  
“We’re not doing anything, Papy!” Blue protested, but he blushed harder.  
  
“Yeah, boss, get a room,” Red chimed in, turned Stretch’s skull towards himself, and licked him full on in the face.  
  
Stretch spluttered, but didn’t dare say anything for fear of getting fox saliva in his mouth—more than he already had. Blue and Edge were too preoccupied to notice. Blue was trying to pry Edge’s mouth open. The fox obligingly parted his jaws and let his tongue slip out. Stretch glued his eyes to the TV screen and tried to ignore them.  
  
“Jealous?” Red asked, this time pressing just the tip of his tongue to the side of Stretch’s skull.  
  
“No,” said Stretch, leaning away as far as he could, which wasn’t much.  
  
Edge sat up again, and when Stretch looked up to see why, he saw it was because it was hard to swallow Blueberry lying down. Stretch glared at the fox. Edge finished swallowing and looked back at him impassively. When Blueberry had gotten settled in his stomach, he gave Stretch an apologetic grin through the translucent red flesh.  
  
After a while, Red fell asleep, and Stretch extracted himself from the fox’s arms and put a little space between them. He was too annoyed with Edge to come up onto the couch. But he had to admit, Edge had probably done the best he could at the selection of movies. No rabbits died on-screen, at least.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This can't end until Stretch gets nommed at least once :3  
> I don't have a very concrete plan though X3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie night, part 2!

When the movie credits rolled, Blueberry hopped down to turn it off. Had Edge just now let him out? Had he been able to hear the movie dialogue from in there? Stretch wondered but felt too lethargic to ask.  
  
Blueberry hopped over to Red. “Red, wake up! You slept through half the movie!”  
  
Red woke in the middle of a snore, reached for Stretch and found him gone. “Wha? Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here, bunny? I thought Boss finally ate ya.”  
  
“He did, silly!”  
  
“Then how come you’re out here again?”  
  
“He always lets me out again after he eats me.” Blueberry beamed, apparently proud of the arrangement he and Edge had made.  
  
“Wait, ‘always’? You been doin’ this a lot?”  
  
Blueberry started counting on his fingers. “Maybe five or six times by now. We’re getting better at it, too! The first time it was really—”  
  
“Five or six? I guess that means I’m due for a turn.” Red sat up and grabbed Blueberry, held him over his head, and opened his jaws wide.  
  
“Red, no!” Blueberry struggled. “Put me down!”  
  
Stretch reached for a blaster—even if he couldn’t beat Red, he could distract him, perhaps long enough for Blueberry to escape. He couldn’t quite picture Blueberry actually running very far from the foxes…  
  
“Sans,” Edge growled, and Red reluctantly set Blue back on the floor.  
  
“Red, you can’t,” said Blueberry, pouting. “This is a special thing between me and Edge.”  
  
“All right, fine,” Red huffed. “I have my own bunny.” He leaned over and pulled Stretch across the carpet toward him. He grabbed Stretch’s skull and pulled it toward his open jaws. Stretch could see saliva dripping within.  
  
“Red, no!” said Blue. “You can’t just grab someone and eat them.” Stretch’s soul lightened to hear him finally talking sense.  
  
“You gotta ask him first,” Blueberry concluded, crossing his arms authoritatively.  
  
“All right,” Red agreed reluctantly. “Hey, Carrots, is it okay if I eat you?”  
  
“N-no!” Stretch stammered. But Red wasn’t listening. He was already opening his jaws again and stuffing Stretch’s skull inside.  
  
“No, Red! That’s now how it works!” Blueberry scolded.  
  
“Sans!” Edge growled again.  
  
Stretch could barely hear them, muffled by the flesh of Red’s mouth pressed against his skull. Stars, was he going to die like this right in front of Blueberry? Edge would stop his brother, wouldn’t he? What was taking him so long?  
  
After an uncomfortably long time, he found himself pulled back out, scraping against Red’s pointy teeth on the way, but not hard enough to hurt. Blinking the saliva from his eye sockets, he saw Edge had stood up to lean menacingly over Red, and Blueberry clinging to Edge’s leg. They both relaxed when they saw him freed.  
  
“Red, you can’t do that,” Blueberry scolded, wagging a finger at the fox. “You gotta ask him first, and then he has to say yes!”  
  
Red frowned, then grinned and patted Stretch on the back. “Well, why didn’t ya say so? Sorry, Carrots!” He leaned back against the couch, untroubled. “I really thought once Boss finally ate your brother there you wouldn’t care so much if I ate you too.”  
  
Stretch glared at him. It was sound reasoning, though. If Edge had eaten Blue for real—in the traditional sense—if Blue were—it didn’t bear thinking about. And if not for Blueberry, Edge would have no reason to stop Red from eating Stretch. It wasn’t really up to him at all, Stretch realized. It was purely Edge’s decision whether he got eaten or not.  
  
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Stretch muttered, wiping with his sleeves at the drool coating his skull. Red must have been waiting for Edge to give in and eat Blue, not realizing he’d been satisfying that desire without harming the little bunny, certain that he’d be allowed to eat Stretch as soon as Edge didn’t have to keep him alive to appease Blueberry.  
  
Red grinned at him. “I can be patient,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red is gradually going further with each attempt X3  
> At this rate, next time he'll get Stretch's skull all the way into his throat at least.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red needs Stretch's help with something :3

“Can you go help Red fix the DVD player for our next movie night?”  
  
“What? Me by myself?”  
  
“Well, yeah. I have patrols to do.” Blueberry looked surprised that he would find that to be a problem.  
  
“No. I’m not going alone into a den of foxes.”  
  
Blueberry smiled understandingly. “I know it’s scary without your magnificent brother to protect you. But it’s only our friends. And … I kinda already said you’d go.”  
  
Stretch sighed. “At least tell me Edge will be there.”  
  
“I … didn’t ask. Please, Papy? Red needs your help.”  
  
“Yeah, he needs something to snack on while he works.”  
  
“Papy, he wouldn’t do that. Remember last time, I told him not to.”  
  
Stretch wasn’t convinced, and Blueberry could tell from the way his ears plastered miserably to his skull.  
  
“Here, if you’re worried he’s hungry, why not take him some snacks?” He handed Stretch a box of bunny-shaped crackers.  
  
“I don’t like the symbolism of these,” Stretch grumbled, but he took them anyway.  
  
***  
  
Fox Snowdin wasn’t any colder than the Snowdin Stretch was used to, but he shivered as he knocked on the door to be let in. When it opened, he was relieved to see the tall figure of Edge. Edge wasn’t as pleased to see him.  
  
“What are you doing here? Get inside!”  
  
Stretch scurried in, trying not to cower. It was hard not to be intimidated by a large, loud predator like Edge. The fox was still glaring down at him, waiting for an explanation.  
  
“R-Red asked for me.” He wasn’t doing too well at not cowering.  
  
“Sans! Did you invite Carrots over?”  
  
Stretch bristled at the nickname but couldn’t quite work up the nerve to correct Edge.  
  
“Uh. Yeah, boss, I guess I did.” Red’s voice came from the couch.  
  
“You can’t invite a bunny here and not go meet them at the portal!” Edge stalked over, lecturing Red on his irresponsibility. “Anything could happen to him while he’s waiting for you to let him in! Why do you think I gave Blueberry a key to the house? Do you realize—Never mind, I have to go on patrol. But we’ll talk about this when I get back!”  
  
“Okay, boss.”  
  
“Wait, you’re going out?” Stretch almost caught at Edge’s boots as he walked back toward the door.  
  
“I can’t delay my patrol for you, Carrots.” Edge did look honestly sorry.  
  
“My name isn’t Carrots.”  
   
“Of course not! But it suits you.” Edge didn’t quite register his objection. “In any case! I’m sure you’ll be fine alone with my brother for an hour or so. Right, Sans?” He poured menace into the last two words.  
  
“Of course, boss.” Red waved lazily from the couch.  
  
“He’ll be on his best behavior!” Edge directed his words at the couch, not at Stretch. Then he left and closed the door behind him.  
  
Stretch crept over in front of the couch, then coughed to get Red’s attention. “My brother said you wanted my help with the DVD player?”  
  
“Ah… right.” Red was sprawling on the couch and didn’t show any sign of getting up. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to watch some rabbit movies. How interesting can they be with just rabbits?”  
  
Irritation suddenly overcame fear. “You called me over here. Do you want my help or not?”  
  
“You know what would really help is a snack. Can’t work on an empty stomach.” Red grinned, finally shifting himself upright.  
  
“I thought you’d say that, so I brought these.” Stretch tossed the box of bunny crackers at him.  
  
Red laughed. “You came prepared.” He set the crackers aside and shuffled over to the TV.  
  
Stretch frowned and followed him.  
  
“I did have a legitimate reason for asking you here, though. You have those tiny little hands. And this rabbit DVD player is so small and delicate. You know how to use a soldering iron, right?”  
  
***  
  
After an hour or so, they had perfected Red’s adapter to display output from a rabbit-scale DVD player on a fox-scale TV using a fox-scale power source. Red sat back, grinning with accomplishment. “I guess it’s not true what they say about dumb bunnies.”  
  
“Thanks, I guess?” Stretch rolled his sleeves back down.   
  
“And this rabbit movie isn’t so bad, like watching a bunch of burger ads in a row.”  
  
Stretch ignored the implications. “Don’t watch too much of the movie. I think Blueberry wants to save it for our official movie night.”  
  
“All this tinkering works up an appetite, doesn’t it?” Red leaned closer to Stretch.  
  
Stretch leaned away, but Red reached an arm around him. “R-Red, stop. You said you w—”  
  
Red pulled him closer, pressing his skull up against the fox’s tongue. Stretch could only whine in protest as Red grabbed his arms and pushed him deeper. Surely he was just playing around, right? Edge wasn’t here to stop him, but he wasn’t actually going to eat Stretch, was he? Having his entire skull engulfed in the fox’s mouth was unpleasant, but it was no more than he’d done on their last movie night. Stretch squirmed, but Red had a firm grip on his arms and there wasn’t much he could actually do to push himself back out. But he expected Red to pull him out again, just like last time, and laugh at him and maybe make some cruel joke at his expense.  
  
Instead, Red pushed him deeper, his skull intruding into the fox’s throat, and swallowed. Stretch panicked, flailing and kicking, but it didn’t break Red’s grip. The fox swallowed again, and Stretch could feel his teeth pressing against his ribs through his hoodie. Oh stars, he was gonna die.   
  
Stretch had to keep his eye sockets squeezed shut, with Red’s ecto-flesh pressed around his face, and his arms were very effectively pinned now that his shoulders were inside the fox. He focused on his legs, trying to find something to brace against to push himself back out, whether it was the floor or Red’s body or anything. Red took another leisurely gulp, and Stretch couldn’t even find the floor, his legs dangling in the air. Red’s teeth closed on his spine, his tongue pulling his hoodie out of the way—his entire rib cage was inside the fox’s mouth. Red had let go of his arms and now grasped his legs. Stretch kicked furiously, but the fox only adjusted his grip.  
  
Stretch couldn’t even cry out or beg him to stop. Nothing he did made a difference—his last mistake was coming here in the first place. Or not having Edge take him home on his way out. And he was going to pay for it with his life. And Blueberry—What would his brother think? He might have a lot of time to dwell on these questions before he was digested. He’d thought he was making progress at getting along with Red. He’d parried his initial threats and they’d cooperated and worked together. But the fox had just been taking his time. How stupid could he have been to trust him?  
  
Something clamped down on Stretch’s spine, and he was afraid Red was going to bite through it. But it wasn’t teeth; the pressure wasn’t localized enough. It gripped him hard and yanked, squeezing him even tighter against all of Red’s magic that was keeping him in—and suddenly with a rush he was in the open air again.   
  
He landed sitting on the carpet, blinking saliva out of his eye sockets. Red was scowling, using his sleeve to wipe away some drool that had trailed out along with Stretch. The bunny followed his gaze, turning to see Edge standing behind him, clenching and unclenching his fist.  
  
“Edge! Thank stars.” Stretch tried to jump up and run to him, but instead just fell over. “You’d be a good barber, Edge, because you cut things really close,” he said, splayed out on the carpet.  
  
“Don’t get that slime all over the carpet, please,” said Edge, stepping around him to get to his brother. “Don’t give me that look, Sans! What do you think you were doing?”  
  
“We finished a li’l early and I wanted a snack.”  
  
“You—! I’ll deal with you later.” The larger fox turned and scooped Stretch up off the floor. “Come on, Carrots. You have to get cleaned up before you go home.”  
  
Red muttered something about doing really well at resisting temptation for a whole hour. Stretch clung to Edge as he carried him into the bathroom, letting go reluctantly as he was set down.  
  
“Take off your hoodie so I can wash it,” the tall fox instructed. “And call your brother; he’ll probably be worried you’re taking so long.”  
  
Stretch numbly obeyed, selecting Blueberry from his phone contacts as Edge disappeared briefly with his hoodie and undershirt.  
  
“Papy? What is it?” Blueberry sounded concerned that anything had been important enough to call him at work.  
  
“Uh. Edge said I should tell you I’ll be a little late getting back.”  
  
“Oh, okay, that’s fine. What happened?”  
  
“I almost got eaten, obviously.”  
  
“Oh, come on, Papy, you say that every time you’re in the same room as a fox.”  
  
“No, I’m serious. I was halfway down his gullet.”  
  
“Whose?” At least Blueberry seemed a little alarmed by that.  
  
“Red’s.”  
  
Blueberry laughed. “Don’t exaggerate, Papy. I know he likes to tease you.”  
  
“I’m not exa—Sans, my skull was down in his rib cage and his teeth were around my spine.”  
  
“Okay, Papy.” Blueberry either didn’t believe him or didn’t think that was very serious. “You’re okay now, though, right?”  
  
Stretch hesitated. He was definitely not okay, but he didn’t want Blueberry to worry that he was hurt. Finally he sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just gotta wait on my clothes to dry out after we wash the fox spit out of them.”  
  
“I can do that here.”  
  
“Edge already started the washer.” In retrospect, Stretch would have preferred to get home, whether he went covered in fox spit or naked or borrowing something way too big from the foxes, put on a fresh shirt, and leave it all to deal with later.  
  
“Okay, Papy. I’ll wait dinner on you. See you later.” Blueberry hung up.  
  
Stretch sighed again.   
  
Edge had returned and was watching him. The fox silently knelt to turn on the water and run him a bath. “For what it’s worth,” he said over the running water, “I am fairly certain he was just teasing you.”  
  
“FAIRLY certain!” Stretch scoffed.  
  
“He knew how long my patrol would take. His timing suggests he wanted to get caught.”  
  
“What if you ran into some kinda trouble and didn’t get back on time?”  
  
“Finish undressing.” Edge removed his gloves as well. “I don’t think you would have been injured. He could have spit you back out, or just held you in his stomach unharmed. I do it to your brother all the time.” He blushed and looked away.  
  
Stretch obeyed, and didn’t resist as Edge placed him in the warm water. It did feel good to let the water dissolve all the traces of Red from every crevice of his bones, and he didn’t even have to think about cleaning himself, as Edge was handling it all, gently massaging soap into the fur on Stretch’s ears. Perhaps he was trying to make up for his lackluster supervision of his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gross, Red :3
> 
> I wonder what will happen at the next movie night.  
> I wonder what other social activities these skels can come up with.  
> :3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie night #2!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter :3  
> Red keeps his tongue to himself for once too.

The movie was Blueberry’s favorite monster-made epic fantasy romp starring Mettabun. Stretch had to admit they could do some pretty impressive special effects with ingenuity and a shoestring budget, and if the story was generic, it was still a uniquely monster take on the genre.  
  
Once all four skeletons were gathered in the foxes’ living room, Blueberry eagerly pressed play and bounced onto the couch next to Red, who hadn’t bothered to get up to greet the rabbits. Edge took the seat on the other side of Blueberry, leaving no obvious place for Stretch. Red was munching on the bunny crackers Stretch had brought a couple days previously. When he saw Stretch looking at him, he grinned, opened wide, and deliberately placed one of the crackers deep inside on top of his tongue, then swallowed it without ever closing his jaws. Stretch shuddered.  
  
Blueberry finally noticed his dilemma and scooted over to make room. He didn’t need an entire couch cushion to himself. He would probably end up on top of, or inside of, Edge before too long anyway. “Come on up, Carrots,” he beckoned, then turned back to Edge.  
  
Stretch froze. “Sans.” Blueberry didn’t appear to have heard him. “Sans!” he said louder. Blueberry and Red both startled. “Sorry. Blueberry,” he corrected himself. “Please—don’t call me Carrots.”  
  
“Oh! Sorry, Papy.”  
  
Blueberry shot him a winning smile, but Stretch stayed where he was on the floor, hunched over, looking so miserable that Blueberry hopped down to him.  
  
“Papy, are you okay? I know Red was teasing you with it but I didn’t think it actually bothered you. I’m really sorry, Papy.”  
  
Stretch ran his phalanges down his ear, forcing himself to relax for Blueberry’s sake. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just…don’t want you of all monsters to call me that.” It really didn’t bother him much anymore that Red used the nickname. There was nothing he could do about it, and if he could control Red’s behavior there were other, more important things he would stop the fox from doing. And if Red was using it, it didn’t make much difference if Edge used it too, or so he told himself, not liking to think he was too intimidated by the larger fox to correct him. But he couldn’t stand to have his own brother call him by the name Red had given him.  
  
“Okay, I won’t,” Blueberry promised solemnly. “I just thought it would be less confusing, when you and Edge are both really named Papyrus.”  
  
“Yeah, and you can call me Stretch, at a stretch.” Stretch grinned even though the pun didn’t quite make sense. “But I think if you say Papy, everyone will know who you mean.”  
  
“Oh. Right.” Blueberry looked away guiltily.  
  
Stretch froze again. His soul prickled. “You…don’t call anyone else that, do you?”  
  
“No, of course not.” Blue was a terrible liar.  
  
They were keeping their voices low, or at least low for Blueberry, but the foxes were only a few feet away, and of course they could hear everything. Edge’s stare had picked up something of alarm. Stretch didn’t turn to look at Red; no doubt he was highly amused.  
  
“Okay,” said Stretch, dipping his skull in resignation. “Let’s just watch the movie.” Now Blueberry knew it bothered him, so even if he had been doing it, he would most likely stop. Besides, it might just have been an isolated mistake. He had to give his brother the benefit of the doubt.  
  
Blueberry hopped back up on the couch, and Stretch followed him. Since Blueberry, naturally, sat cuddled up to Edge, Stretch had to be on the side next to Red.  
  
“Don’t be sad, Carrots.” The fox put an arm around him and pulled him close. “It can be our special nickname between the two of us. Hey, you should have a special nickname for me too, like maybe Foxy.” He winked and stretched out the word to try and make it sound sexy.  
  
“Sa—Red, more than half of Snowdin would answer to Foxy,” Edge criticized.  
  
“You got a better idea? It has ta be somethin’ cool.”  
  
“Perhaps a food theme, to go with Blueberry and Carrots?”  
  
“That’d just be confusin’. They ARE food.”  
  
Edge glared at him but didn’t actually argue the point. “If you nicknamed him Carrots, he should get to choose his nickname for you.”  
  
“Maybe later,” said Stretch. He’d have to come up with something suitably insulting. But right now he just wanted to sleep until movie night was over and he could go home. He leaned back into the couch, relaxing in spite of Red’s overly familiar embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found another way to torture Stretch. Poor bunny ^^;


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie night #2 part 2!

Stretch was awoken by voices.  
  
“And how come all the foxes are bad guys?” Red was complaining.  
  
“They aren’t! There’s one good fox. That’s why I picked this movie!” Blueberry defended his choice.  
  
“Yeah, and he died after like ten minutes.”  
  
“He heroically sacrificed himself to save his friends!”  
  
“From all the bad foxes.”  
  
“Well, yeah!”  
  
Edge interrupted them. “Red, don’t judge. You’ve seen how our movies treat rabbits.”  
  
Stretch opened his eye sockets to see Edge easily restraining Blue from going to confront Red. Traces of red magic caught in the fur on his ears, and the fact that he’d removed his gloves and boots, suggested he and Edge had been up to their usual shenanigans.  
  
“That’s different. We don’t have any rabbit monsters—” Red noticed Stretch was awake. “Oh. Mornin’, darlin’.” He leaned in to lick the bunny’s cheekbone. Stretch shuddered and let him.  
  
Blueberry seemed to have calmed down, no longer struggling ineffectually to escape Edge’s grip. “Maybe we should try something other than movie nights.”  
  
“I can always make dinner,” offered Edge.  
  
“How about board game night?”  
  
“Yeah, we got some board games,” said Red. “Which one do you wanna play, Rabbit Hunt or Bunny Catcher?”  
  
“Are those real?” Blueberry’s eyes widened.  
  
Edge coughed. “We could certainly try a board game or card game.”  
  
“I want to show Edge more of Snowdin. Our Snowdin, I mean.” Blueberry looked lovingly up at the huge fox.  
  
“You can’t bring Red to Snowdin,” Stretch protested, finally pushing himself away from the smaller fox. “He’d eat half the town.”  
  
“Don’t be silly.” Blue dismissed the idea—Stretch knew he was exaggerating, but still, why couldn’t Blueberry see it was a serious problem if Red even tried to eat a single monster? “You’re the only bunny for him,” Blue clarified.  
  
Stretch’s jaw dropped. “He tried to eat you last week!”  
  
“Aw, he was just playing around.” Blueberry favored Red with his winning smile.  
  
“Yeah,” Red agreed. “I won’t touch your brother, Carrots.” He glanced at Edge, then gave Stretch a squeeze. “And how can I go back to regular fleshy bunnies after you?”  
  
Stretch had no idea if he was being sarcastic or not.  
  
“But maybe I’ll just take Edge,” Blueberry conceded. Stretch was relieved he was finally willing to leave Red out of their plans for once. “Red can show you around here instead,” he continued. “We don’t always have to do double dates.”  
  
“What—no—I’m not—” Stretch started to be horrified at the idea of walking around a fox town with Red as escort, but it was overtaken by the superior horror that Blueberry thought he was dating Red.  
  
Blueberry looked up at Edge for approval. “Red wouldn’t let anything happen to him, right?”  
  
Edge seemed uncertain. “I am sure Red doesn’t want any other fox to eat Carrots.” That was apparently the limit of what he could honestly say.  
  
“Yeah, you’re mine,” Red agreed, pulling Stretch close and giving him a long lick up the skull.  
  
Stretch tried to pull away, but Red’s arm around his ribs kept him in place. “I am not dating Red!”  
  
“Then why are you always letting him lick you like that?” Blueberry seemed amused at his denial.  
  
“I’m not LE—” Red put a phalange against his jawbone and turned his skull to face him, then cut him off with another lick. Stretch moaned with revulsion.  
  
“See? Get a room, you two!” Blueberry teased, resting his skull in his hands with his elbows propped against Edge’s glove.  
  
Stretch shoved at Red, and the fox relented. “Stop licking me!” He turned to Blueberry. Why couldn’t his brother see how much he hated this? “Sans. I—”  
  
Red leaned around him and, with his skull tilted sideways, placed his mouth over Stretch’s entire face. Stretch managed to escape by falling backwards, wedging himself in between the fox and the couch. “What are you doing?!”  
  
“Not licking you.” Red grinned.  
  
Stretch wasn’t sure that didn’t arguably count as licking. “Your tongue was all over my face.”  
  
“You want me to keep my tongue off your face?”  
  
“Yes.” Exasperated, Stretch pulled himself upright, holding onto the back of the couch and Red’s arm.  
  
“Okay,” Red agreed amicably.  
  
Stretch tried to drive that experience out of his memory, and focused on Blueberry again. “Sans—Blueberry. Do you honestly think I—augh!”  
  
Red had lifted Stretch’s hand, pulled down his sleeve, and run his tongue along the length of his ulna. The bunny glared at him.  
  
“Not your face,” he explained.  
  
“Just keep your tongue in your mouth. Please? For a little while? I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”  
  
“I seriously think you two should get a room,” said Blueberry, blushing a little with vicarious embarrassment.  
  
“Oh come on, Sans, you two are always—you know…”  
  
Edge had the decency to look embarrassed, but Blueberry was indignant. “There’s nothing wrong with eating in public.”  
  
“It’s not—RED!”  
  
“Iss in my mouf,” Red protested, speech muffled because he was sucking on Stretch’s entire hand.  
  
“I give up.” Stretch let himself collapse on the couch, arm hanging from Red’s jaws. “Just eat me if you’re gonna.”  
  
Red pulled his hand a little deeper into his mouth.  
  
“Red,” Edge warned. “I think he’s had enough for today.”  
  
Red let Stretch’s hand slip out of his mouth. Stretch didn’t react. “Aww, but he said I could!”  
  
“I’m taking them home,” Edge declared. “You can ask if he still feels the same way next time.”  
  
“Papy, are you okay?” Blueberry patted his brother’s shoulder, concerned. “How can you be so tired when you just slept through the whole movie?”  
  
Edge scooped up both rabbits, ignoring a disappointed grumble from Red.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stretch and Red go on a date~

“I’m not going.”  
  
“But Papy! Red is looking forward to showing you around!”  
  
“He’ll eat me.”  
  
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Papy. Edge told me that, um, it’s not very polite to eat people, in front of other people.” He blushed cyan, probably embarrassed about having gotten eaten by Edge in front of Stretch and Red, multiple times. “And you’ll be in Snowdin, so there will be people walking around.”  
  
Stretch folded his ears back. “I don’t think other foxes are gonna stop him.”  
  
“Don’t worry so much. He knows he’s gotta ask you first.”  
  
“And you think he’d fight off another fox if one attacked me?”  
  
“He’s not a bad fighter. He’s an alternate version of me! And he’s a sentry or something for the Royal Guard.”  
  
“I’m still not going.”  
  
“Papy, pleeeease?” Blueberry gave him the puppy-dog eyes.  
  
“Ugh, fine. You’ll feel bad if I die though.”  
  
“You’re not gonna die, Papy.” Blue laughed.  
  
Stretch would try not to. Blueberry would feel bad if he died.  
  
***  
  
Edge stepped through the portal. He was wearing a stylishly tattered black T-shirt with a spiderweb print instead of his usual armor, perhaps so as to be less intimidating to the residents of Bunny Snowdin. It wasn’t as if they’d never seen a fox before—most of them—but they would never have seen one this big.  
  
“Wow, Edge! You look … good!” Blueberry was somewhat at a loss for words. He hadn’t worn anything special beyond his own armor, but he had polished it for even longer than usual.  
  
“Thank you, Blueberry.” Edge scooped the bunny into his arms. “Hello, Stretch. My brother is waiting for you on the other side of the portal.” He shot a glare back toward the portal as if he could intimidate Red into acting responsibly from here, then looked Stretch up and down with distaste. “You’re wearing that?”  
  
Stretch looked up at him, lost.  
  
“Never mind. It’s none of my business. We’ll see you this evening.” He had to bend down a bit to fit into the room at all but he still managed to exude confidence as he climbed the stairs.  
  
Stretch looked after him. He wanted Stretch to dress up for Red? Red was lucky that he was going at all. It defied all logic and self-preservation. In fact, he could just stay here and come up with some excuse. Perhaps the portal machine would mysteriously stop working. If Edge was trapped on this side, Blueberry would have no real reason to object, right?  
  
He sighed with resignation. Edge would definitely catch on. He didn’t want to imagine Edge furious with him. And since they could still talk to Red on the other side by phone, and would probably rope in Undyne as well, they could probably work out how to fix the machine even without Stretch’s help.  
  
The portal was still open. Red’s head and shoulders emerged. “You comin’ or what?” He grabbed Stretch’s arm and pulled, making him stumble through the portal. “Welcome to Snowdin.” Red gave him a lopsided grin. He was wearing a bright green bowtie.  
  
Stretch couldn’t help but laugh at how awkward he looked. It would have been cute, adorable even, if he weren’t a bloodthirsty rabbit-eating fox. “You dressed up,” he observed, impressed.  
  
“You didn’t.” Red leered. “That’s okay. I only wore this because Boss made me. Shall we go?” He made an elaborate bow, gesturing toward the stairs.  
  
“Lead the way,” said Stretch, not comfortable turning his back on the fox.  
  
“Whatever you say, Carrots.” Red trudged up the stairs, opened the door, and locked it behind them when Stretch was out.  
  
“Where are we going?” Stretch was nervous. He had only agreed to this at the last minute, so he hadn’t put much thought into their actual destination.  
  
“I’m gonna show you my favorite haunt.”  
  
Great. It’ll be my haunt too if I die there and come back as a ghost, thought Stretch, but he didn’t dare voice the joke. He followed the fox through the snow, noticing how much bigger Red’s shoe prints were than his own.  
  
“Here we are.” Red stopped at the entrance to a building labeled “Grillby’s” across the front in large orange letters.  
  
“Oh. Our Grillby lives in Hotland.”  
  
“There’s a rabbit Grillby?” Red guffawed.  
  
Stretch didn’t volunteer any more information. Red put a hand on his shoulder to herd him inside as he opened the door.  
  
The bar was, predictably, full of foxes. Behind the counter was a purple flame monster. Looking closely, Stretch realized the flames took the shape of a bipedal fox.  
  
When Stretch showed no sign of proceeding further, Red put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him ahead.  
  
“Sans,” said the flame monster, his tone warning. “You should know better.”  
  
“What, Grillbz? What’d I do this time?”  
  
“No outside food.”  
  
Red laughed, putting an arm around Stretch. “This isn’t food. This is my new bunny friend.”  
  
Stretch realized every fox in the place was staring at him now.  
  
“Sans, I don’t get your new comedy act. It’s too post-modern,” said one.  
  
“You can’t be friends with a bunny. That’s like being friends with … these fries!” said another, dipping a fry in ketchup and eating it to demonstrate how much they were not friends.  
  
Red shrugged. “Well, I am, so you all had better lay off.”  
  
“That’s pretty gross, Sans, pretending to be friends with him before you eat him,” opined a third fox.  
  
“I’m not—” Red stopped, looking at Stretch. Was he blushing? What had he been going to say? He wasn’t friends with Stretch? Or he wasn’t pretending? He wasn’t going to eat him?  
  
“Yeah, Sans, it’s rude to show off your catch like that if you didn’t bring enough for everyone.” The fox with the fries pointed one at Stretch and licked their lips. The bunny huddled close to Red.  
  
Grillby crackled. “This is why I said no outside food.”  
  
“I told ya he’s not—just give us some beers, okay?” He dragged Stretch to the bar and pushed him toward a stool.  
  
Grillby kept crackling discontentedly but poured two beers.  
  
Stretch took hold of the glass, marveling at how much bigger everything was here.  
  
Red downed half of his in one go. “You got anyplace like this in Bunny World, Carrots?”  
  
“Well, yes. But we don’t have a bar in Snowdin, just a bakery.”  
  
“A bakery? I guess that’s better ‘n nothin’.”  
  
“Sans—Blue would never let me hang out in a bar anyway. He already complains that I eat too many pastries.”  
  
“I wouldn’t turn down pastries, but we got some real food here. Grillbz, got a menu?”  
  
Grillby fizzled as he tossed a laminated paper onto the counter. Stretch cautiously took it and looked it over.  
  
“R-rabbit burgers?”  
  
“Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn’t want that. There’s still fries though.”  
  
Stretch wondered if it was too early to leave.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date at Grillby's, part 2!

“Gonna pay your way, Carrots?”  
  
“Oh. Right.” Red had eaten half of Stretch’s fries on top of his own, and the other half were still sitting abandoned on the plate, but Stretch was glad enough to leave that he didn’t mind paying. He fished a couple gold coins out of his pocket and placed them on the counter. Maybe he should have eaten more of the fries, since he’d drunk almost half of the beer and it had him feeling buzzed.  
  
“I can’t accept those,” the fox Grillby crackled, looking up from wiping a glass.  
  
Of course, the coins here were larger, Stretch realized. He looked from the bartender to Red, who just shrugged.  
  
Grillby set down the glass and walked over. “Perhaps I can allow a barter system this once.” He reached out and grabbed the collar of Stretch’s hoodie, pulling him halfway onto the bar.  
  
“Hey, hey, he’s worth more than a plate of fries and a beer, isn’t he?”  
  
“I’ll credit him against your tab, Sans,” said Grillby, a purple tongue of flame flickering out to explore Stretch’s eye socket. The rabbit frantically tried to brace himself against the bar.  
  
Red didn’t lift a single phalange to stop the fire monster. “C’mon, Grillbz, just put it on my tab.”  
  
“You’ve reached the limit of your credit, Sans.” Fire was apparently pretty strong; with a tug, Grillby pulled Stretch over the bar, letting him fall to the floor on the other side in a heap. As Stretch got his feet under himself again, the fire fox regained his grip on the rabbit’s hoodie, lifting him off the ground. Grillby opened his jaws and let the flame of his tongue play around Stretch’s face.  
  
“Grillbz. You just said no outside food,” Red reminded him.  
  
Grillby paused, and apparently decided Red was right. The fire fox carried Stretch over to a door behind the bar, opened it, and tossed him inside.  
  
Stretch picked himself up from the floor for a second time, finding himself in a small room full of shelves stocked with various ingredients, barrels or casks on the floor, a bin full of potatoes, and a refrigerator humming away. It must be a pantry or storeroom … where Grillby kept … food …  
  
He stayed sitting on the floor and hugged his knees to his chest, trembling. He’d told Blue he was going to get killed. He’d told him Red wouldn’t stop him getting eaten. That refrigerator was probably full of rabbit meat, too… He whimpered and squeezed his eye sockets shut, waiting, trying to imagine what Blueberry would think...  
  
“What are you still doing in here?” Red asked impatiently, appearing next to him. “You forget you could teleport?”  
  
Stretch looked up at him, blinking back tears.  
  
“Come on, Carrots.” Red grabbed his arm and teleported them both. Their feet landed in snow, and, looking around, Stretch realized they were behind the bar.  
  
“I thought … you’d abandoned me,” he said.  
  
“Would I do that?” Red grinned at him, and for once Stretch didn’t find it completely off-putting. “Come on, Carrots. Where else do you wanna see in your tour of Snowdin?”  
  
“Can we—can we just hang out at your place?” Stretch thought he’d had enough excitement for today, and seen more of the fox universe than he really wanted to.  
  
“Sure thing, babe.” Red took his arm again and teleported them into the living room of his house. “You just relax. I think maybe that fox beer was too strong for ya.” Stretch was clinging to him, tears threatening to fall from his sockets again. Red pushed him gently onto the couch. “There ya go, Carrots. That scared you, huh? You’re okay now.” The fox stroked Stretch’s skull, mumbling soothing words. “Good bunny. It’s okay.” Red traced his fingers down Stretch’s body, then straighted out his legs on the couch and slipped off his shoes, setting them on the floor. It probably wasn’t very good manners to put his shoes on Red’s couch, Stretch had to admit. Red moved up to the bunny’s pants and started to pull them off, working them past his pelvis where his weight held them between the bone and the fabric of the couch.  
  
“What’re you doing?” Stretch said, tilting his skull to see what was happening without actually sitting up.  
  
“Eatin’ you.” Red grinned at him placidly. “You don’t mind, right? Better me than Grillby.” He tugged experimentally at Stretch’s hoodie.  
  
“Yeah, I guess,” Stretch agreed absently. Red was definitely better than Grillby. He crossed his arms to stop the fox taking off his hoodie.  
  
Giving up on the hoodie, Red sat sideways on the end of the couch and picked up his feet, licking them.  
  
“Wait … wait a minute,” said Stretch. “You mean ‘eat’ like my brother does with Edge, or … y’know … regular ‘eat’?”  
  
Red didn’t answer, but stuffed the bunny’s feet into his mouth.   
  
Stretch let his skull fall back onto the couch in defeat. “I’m gonna be really mad if you eat me just like those French fries.”  
  
Red grinned a little wider, moving forward so that Stretch’s legs pushed deep into his throat. It was kind of like a massage and a warm bath in one, Stretch thought sleepily, letting his skull fall sideways on the couch. Red worked his way up the legs and bit down lightly on his pelvis.  
  
The scrape of the fox’s teeth somehow drove home to Stretch what was happening. “W-wait! Red, stop—please don’t do this!” He tried to sit up but with his pelvis already between Red’s jaws, he couldn’t do more than bend his spine. He reached behind himself to try to get a grip on the couch and pull himself out, but he couldn’t get any real leverage. He tried pushing instead, hands against Red’s face. Red swallowed his pelvis and tail and clamped his teeth down around his spine above. As the fox’s skull got closer, Stretch could exert more force to press him back, but now that he had Stretch’s pelvis, there was no pushing him down past it.  
  
“Red, no, please, I don’t wanna be eaten,” Stretch pleaded, but Red still tried to inch his way farther up the bunny’s spine. Frantic, Stretch tried poking Red in the eye socket, eliciting an irritated growl. Red reached his own hands forward and grabbed Stretch’s, and now they were both pushing at each other’s hands, until suddenly Red let his hands fall back so that the rest of him was free to move forward, and gulped down more of Stretch’s spine, opening his mouth wide to sink his teeth into the lowest of the bunny’s ribs through his hoodie. Stretch squeaked with terror, pulling his hands free and regaining his grip on the fox’s face, but now that he was so deep in the fox it seemed more and more futile. His legs had been forced to fold up inside of Stretch’s stomach, and he tried to kick or push with them but their movement was heavily restricted by the tight ecto-flesh.  
  
“Sans!” Both of them had been too caught up in what they were doing to notice the door open, although neither Edge nor Blueberry were given to quiet entrances. “What are you doing?!” Edge demanded.  
  
“Nnf,” was all the explanation Red could muster with his mouth full of Stretch’s ribs.  
  
“Carrots, did you agree to let him do this?”  
  
“N-no!” Stretch shoved desperately at the fox.  
  
“Nnf mmf hnnf!” Red protested, pushing forward and hooking his teeth around another rib.  
  
“Sans, he says stop.” Edge folded his arms and towered over his brother. Blueberry watched with concern from behind his boot.  
  
“HMMMnnnfff!” Red insisted, biting down harder, which made Stretch yelp.  
  
“Don’t bite, Sans. You’ll hurt him.”  
  
Red growled sullenly but loosened his jaws a little bit.  
  
“Carrots, do you want to get out now?”  
  
“Yes, please,” Stretch sobbed.  
  
“Sans, let him out.”  
  
Red rolled his eyes and let himself collapse on the couch.  
  
“For stars’ sake, Sans! Blueberry, would you hold onto your brother while I pull this imbecile off him?”  
  
Blueberry jogged over and hopped onto the couch near Stretch’s skull, leaned down and put his weight onto Stretch’s shoulders as if that would really make much difference in anchoring him. But it was enough, as Red relaxed and let Edge pull him backwards off of Stretch, leaving the bunny’s skeletal legs, and a not insignificant amount of drool, laid out on the couch.  
  
“Oh wow, Papy,” said Blue, blushing cyan. “Where are your pants?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stretch totally forgot he could teleport/was too drunk/was thrown off by the different scale of Fox Snowdin. But he would have figured it out if he'd had to :3


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stretch goes to the librarby!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blue continues to be terrible at respecting his brother's consent unu  
> Red also :3

“Again!? No! You saw what happened last time!”  
  
“But he stopped when you said no, didn’t he?”  
  
“No! He stopped when Edge told him no!”  
  
“You didn’t tell him yes?”  
  
“No, I—well, maybe I said something like … I don’t remember exactly. I was just trying to say I’d rather be eaten by him than the fox at the bar!”  
  
Blue folded his arms in victory as if Stretch had conceded the point. “See? Besides, he just wants to show you the library. You love books! They might have some really amazing science books or something that we don’t have here.”  
  
“The library would be kinda tempting,” Stretch admitted, “if it weren’t full of foxes.”  
  
“It’s not going to be full of foxes. I’ve never seen more than three monsters in our library, have you?”  
  
Stretch didn’t answer.  
  
“Would you rather show him around our Snowdin? I’m sure he’d love to see it.”  
  
Stretch thought about all their little bunny neighbors. Many of them would barely be a mouthful for Red. “No, I don’t wanna bring him here.”  
  
“The library it is then.” A smile lit up Blue’s face.  
  
“No, I just—you can show Edge around here and I’ll wait for you at home. What’s wrong with that?”  
  
“Aw, but Papy. Red really likes you.”  
  
“How do ya figure?”  
  
“Look at it this way. Would you put something in your mouth that you didn’t like?”  
  
“Yes. If I was trying to fight someone off, I would bite them if it came down to it.”  
  
“That’s not what I mean, Papy,” Blue said with an unconcerned smile. “Besides, there’s a … fun kind of biting, that you only do with people you really like.” He blushed brighter as he progressed through the sentence.  
  
Stretch stared at him. What was he getting up to with Edge when they were alone together?  
  
“If it’ll help you feel better,” Blue continued, “what if Red promises that he won’t eat you at the library?”  
  
“Or on the way to or from the library. Or after we get back from the library.”  
  
“Yes, all of that. In those exact words.”  
  
“Okay. I guess I could go to the library with him.” The library should be less horrible than that bar, at least, and he could admit to himself that he was a little curious what kind of books would be in a fox library—even if it was most likely equivalent to their own library here, with the misspelled sign and the shelves padded with children’s reports.  
  
***  
  
Red held his hand up formally. “I, Red the fox, do solemnly swear not to eat Carrots the rabbit—not carrots the vegetable, I can still eat that, right? If I wanted to.”  
  
“Of course you can. Finish the oath.” Edge crossed his arms impatiently.  
  
“Not to eat Carrots the rabbit at the library, or on the way to the library, or on the way back from the library, or after we get back from the library. Happy?”  
  
Stretch watched him doubtfully, but nodded. It was the best guarantee he was likely to get.  
  
“All right, we’ll see you back here at dinner time!” Blue gave his brother a hug, jumped up to grab Edge’s hand, and led him through the portal back to the bunnies’ home universe.  
  
Stretch waited for Red to take the lead. Red just looked back at him, grinning. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t eat ya before we start for the library.” Stretch was just about to dive through the portal after his brother when Red laughed. “Don’t worry so much. I’m not gonna break my promise, in letter or in spirit. Unless you, ya know, release me from it.”  
  
Stretch was still too disturbed to move until Red took his hand and half-dragged him up the stairs.  
  
The library was about what Stretch had expected. Misspelled sign, sparse collection of actual books, and packed full of foxes. There was some kind of field trip going on. Most of the foxes were little, and some looked like crosses between foxes and other types of monster. One larger fox, almost as tall as Edge, was directing them all to sit down in a semi-organized manner—she must be the teacher.  
  
“Oh, hello Sans. Who’s your friend?” She stopped as she got a good look at Stretch. “Is that a rabbit?”  
  
Half the little foxes jumped up and swarmed toward Stretch.  
  
“Hey kids,” said Red easily, stepping in front of the bunny. “What’re you doin’ here today?”  
  
“We’re gonna read a story!” shouted one.  
  
“Yes, and it looks like Sans has brought you all a special treat,” said the teacher. “Let’s save him for after the story, shall we?” She beckoned Sans and Stretch to the front of the class as the kids who had hopped up resettled themselves on the floor. “Ooh, I wonder if your friend would mind reading to us today. It would be quite interesting to hear Fluffy Bunny read by an actual bunny!”  
  
Stretch was ready to run and/or teleport away after being referred to as a “treat,” but Red had a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Do it for the kids, huh, Carrots?” He couldn’t be serious, Stretch thought. But his grin had taken on a pleading tone.  
  
“A-all right,” Stretch agreed. He didn’t feel brave enough to say no to these foxes, and reading aloud seemed harmless enough. He remembered the book, and it was even kinda charming, up until the end. The teacher fox handed him a copy; he held it open toward the kids so they could see the illustrations, looking down over the top to read the text. “Once upon a time there was a fox who loved bunnies,” he read. “But all the bunnies were afraid of him.” His voice only shook a little.  
  
The crowd of little foxes exploded in a mixture of cheers and protests when he flipped to the page showing the fox eating Fluffy Bunny. Stretch hurried to get to the next page and read the sentence about Fluffy being let out safely as loudly and authoritatively as possible, but it didn’t seem like the foxes were listening anymore.  
  
“Okay, children, quiet down.” Their teacher took control and soon had them paying attention again. “What did we learn from this story?”  
  
“Bunnies are friends!” chirped one foxlet.  
  
“No, bunnies are food!” yelled another.  
  
“I think you’re both right,” said the teacher. “Bunnies can be friends, but they’re still food. Right?” She looked over at Red and Stretch expectantly.  
  
“I’m not gonna eat ‘im, if that’s what you’re expectin’,” said Red, waving a dismissive hand.  
  
“That would be a perfect way to demonstrate the lesson of the story,” said the teacher.  
  
“I’ll eat him, Ms. Foxington!” One of the little foxes raised a paw in the air.  
  
“Oh? I don’t know if you’re big enough yet.” Ms. Foxington sounded amused. “Give it a try then.”  
  
“Wait, no—!” Stretch protested, but several little foxes took the invitation to pounce on him, making him drop the book. Most of them sank their teeth ineffectually into his hoodie, but one tried to fit his hand in its mouth.  
  
“Do me a favor and don’t bite him, okay, kids?” Red stood back and watched the entertainment. “You’re supposed to swallow him whole just like in the book.”  
  
Struggling to stay on his feet under the onslaught, Stretch shot him a pleading look. He felt himself lifted into the air, out of range of the little foxes, and for a moment he though Red had somehow saved him with blue magic. But it was the fox teacher picking him up by the hood of his sweater.  
  
“See, this bunny is still too big for you. You’ll have to wait, or find some smaller bunnies.”  
  
“Aww,” the foxlings said in unified disappointment.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to eat him?” Ms. Foxington said to Red.  
  
“I didn’t say I don’t want to,” Red mumbled. “I promised I wouldn’t.”  
  
“Well, somebody has to eat him, to set a good example for the children.”  
  
Stretch went from zero to fighting for his life as soon as he realized the teacher’s intentions, but the fox easily stuffed his skull and shoulders into her mouth. He yelled for Red but couldn’t say anything coherent with his face pressed against the back of the fox’s tongue. Oh stars, how had he ever thought he could walk around a town full of foxes like Red and live to tell the tale? He kicked at her, even though it was futile. If Red said anything, he couldn’t hear it over his own muffled screaming inside the fox’s mouth.  
  
But instead of gulping him deeper, the fox pulled him back out of her mouth. “You changed your mind?” she asked Red, letting Stretch dangle by the back of his hoodie this time, his ears drooping as if weighed down with saliva.  
  
“I dunno,” said Red. “Whaddaya think, Carrots? Should I break my promise?”  
  
Stretch raised his skull enough to look at him in horror. Had he somehow set this up to force Stretch to give him permission to eat him? Or had he just gotten lucky? Either way, Stretch had no choice. Ms. Foxington wouldn’t have any compulsions about eating and digesting him, he was certain, but Red might—and even if he didn’t, Stretch could still survive if Edge found them in time.  
  
“Yes! Please,” he sobbed.  
  
Red grinned wide. “Set him on the table for me, would ya? I’m short.”  
  
Ms. Foxington looked skeptical, but turned around and set Stretch on the single table provided for library patrons. Red ambled over and pulled off the bunny’s shoes.  
  
“Oh, I see, you don’t want to eat his shoes,” said Ms. Foxington, satisfied. “Leave his clothes on, though. There are children present.”  
  
“Okay,” said Red, licking Stretch’s feet.  
  
“Sans! Don’t you think that’s a little lewd? Swallow him head-first like a normal monster.”  
  
“But you got your drool all over his skull.” Red gave her a disgusted look. “Not very appetizin’.”  
  
She opened her mouth to argue, but Stretch gathered his magic and teleported, aiming for the skeleton fox brothers’ house. Red was holding his feet and came along with him. They both fell into a snowdrift—Stretch hadn’t been able to target accurately in the unfamiliar world with its backwards layout and larger scale. At least they hadn’t phased into a tree or anything.  
  
Stretch was momentarily exhausted by the strain of teleporting himself and the fox, who was more massive than him even if they were about the same height. He let himself sink into the snow, the cold seeping into his bones. Red spluttered, spitting out snow, then picked himself up and dug the bunny out of the snowdrift.  
  
“Y’know, I usually try not to let anyone see me do that,” Red grunted, annoyed, as he pulled Stretch upright. “Revealin’ my trump card an’ all.”  
  
Stretch wasn’t sure what to say, because he wasn’t even a little bit sorry. The cold didn’t normally bother him, but now he shivered.  
  
“Lucky no one was out here to see us.” Red grinned, and Stretch was terrified he was going to resume where he’d left off. But he reached out and took the bunny’s hand, and teleported them both into his living room, where he lifted Stretch onto the couch.  
  
The bunny relaxed into the warmth and relative safety of the fox brothers’ couch, but he couldn’t help but remember what had happened the last time Red had brought him back here after a close call with another fox. “Red … Please don’t try and eat me again. Remember, you promised.”  
  
“You already released me from that promise.” Red leaned in close, his one golden tooth glinting.  
  
“That only applied to inside the library. Now we’re back from the library, so that section of your promise is still in effect.” Although his voice shook a little, he was a lot less scared than he had been in the other fox’s mouth. Now he mostly just felt tired of dealing with Red’s constant threats.  
  
Red sighed in defeat and stood up straight. “Well. If I’m not gonna eat ya, what should I do? You want some hot tea or somethin’? Oh, I know. I can go get your shoes back from the library.” He blinked away, leaving Stretch staring in confusion at the wall where he’d been.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Red isn't all bad.

“Papy, why are you so nervous? It’s not your first time visiting Edge and Red. It’s not even our first board game night.”  
  
Board game night had become a weekly ritual. The games lent themselves to more interaction, and less temptation for Edge and Blueberry to pursue other diversions. They mostly played rabbit games; even if the pieces were a little small for the foxes to manipulate, everyone could enjoy goals like collecting carrots, and the foxes were only amused if they occasionally appeared as antagonists or hazards. Blue had borrowed and traded games so they could try different ones. When a game was limited to two players and they had to make teams, of course Blue had to be with Edge, which left Red to be Stretch’s partner. Red had been relatively docile since the library incident, though. He liked to cuddle up close to Stretch and sometimes licked, but a stern glance from Edge would make him back off.  
  
“I dunno. I guess—I feel like Red is laying a trap for me somehow.”  
  
“Oh, Papy. If he tries to eat you, you hate it, and if he doesn’t, you still aren’t satisfied! What do you want him to do?”  
  
Stretch thought about it. Even if Red backed off completely, he’d still find it suspicious. And of course he didn’t want Red to go back to trying to eat him every time they met. Was Blue right? Was he being unfair to the fox?  
  
“He did try to eat me…” He counted on his fingers. “About half a dozen times.” The exact number depended on what you considered a serious attempt.  
  
“But he promised not to eat you after you two got back from the library,” said Blueberry. “And it’s still after! I mean, time hasn’t reversed or anything. So maybe he’s just gonna keep on not eating you!”  
  
“I really don’t think that promise covered more than that one day,” said Stretch, but he wondered if Blue could be right. Red had seemed to take the exact wording of the promise pretty seriously.  
  
“Just relax, Papy. Come on, let’s go!” Blue picked up his latest board game acquisition and hurried to the portal, leaving Stretch little choice but to follow.  
  
Red was waiting for them in the lab on the other side.  
  
“Hi Red!” Blue greeted him cheerfully. “Where’s Edge?”  
  
“Boss got called away on some Royal Guard thing, just at the last second,” Red grumbled. “Dunno how long he’ll be.”  
  
“Oh.” Blue’s ears drooped in disappointment, but he quickly recovered. “I guess we’ll just go wait inside, okay?”  
  
Stretch resisted the urge to grab him and jump back through the portal. True, Red had been more or less behaving himself lately. But Stretch had strong doubts whether that would persist in Edge’s absence.  
  
“Come on, Papy!” Blue was already leading the way up the stairs.  
  
Stretch and Red looked at each other. Red didn’t want to be rushed, and Stretch didn’t want to go first if it meant turning his back on the fox. Blue reached the top of the stairs and pushed the door open. Stretch couldn’t let Blue be outside by himself in this dangerous world, so he gave up and started climbing the stairs. If Red pounced on him from behind, at least that would force Blue to turn around and come back.  
  
Blue disappeared into the glare of the snow outside, and suddenly there was a thump and a squeal of distress. Stretch’s first thought was that Red had teleported outside and pounced on Blue, but when he turned, he saw the fox still below him on the stairs, ears standing taut in alarm. Stretch teleported to the top of the stairs—an easy jump since it was so short and within sight. Red ran up the rest of the stairs and nearly knocked him over as he materialized. A few steps outside the open door, a fox monster had pinned Blue to the snow. It turned its head to toward them. It was so fluffy, it would have been adorable if it hadn’t been a fox holding down his brother. It was wearing some kind of armor.  
  
“Lesser?” said Red, surprised, then snarled, “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Heard you had rabbits!”  
  
“Get off of him!”  
  
The fluffy fox just stared at him for a moment, and then bent over to pick Blue up in its mouth. Blue had his eyes squeezed shut, clearly terrified, but he managed to summon a ragged bone construct, even if it went flying wildly off-target. Stretch reached for his magic, but he was panicking too much. In the second it took him to calm down, a wall of bones had already risen up in front of the fluffy fox.  
  
“Hey. Drop him,” Red ordered, his raised hand a clear indicator of whose bones those were. “If you wanna play with a bunny, here, have this one.” He shoved Stretch toward the other fox. Stretch stumbled, lost his hold on the blaster he had been preparing to summon, gave in to a more primal instinct to run using just his legs.  
  
But the fluffy fox didn’t chase him. “Why can’t I have this one? I caught him already.” It spoke pretty clearly for having a rabbit in its mouth.  
  
“That’s Boss’s rabbit. No one’s allowed to eat him other than my bro.” A fresh set of bones hemmed the fox in more closely. Stretch watched from the opposite corner of Red’s and Edge’s house, waiting for a chance to teleport in and grab Blue if the fox let go of him for even an instant.  
  
“What? Your bro can just eat that other one.”  
  
“Last warning.”  
  
The fluffy fox turned to outflank the bone constructs blocking its path. Red whacked in the face with a series of smaller bones, making it drop Blueberry onto the snow. Another wall of bones, these ones blue, sprouted at an angle over the fallen bunny. The fox glared at Red and then turned to run, the lingering bones from previous attacks melting out of its way to let it go.  
  
Stretch teleported next to Blue, and Red waved his hand to dismiss the last of the bones.  
  
“Sans! Sans, are you okay?” Stretch touched his shoulder, not wanting to jostle him in case he was injured.  
  
Blue turned his skull toward his brother, opening tear-filled eye sockets. “Papyyyy,” he whined.  
  
Stretch pulled him up into a sitting position and hugged him. “Sans, are you hurt? You gotta tell me if he hurt you.”  
  
“N-nothing hurts, I don’t think,” Blue sniffled, burying his face in Stretch’s hoodie. “Y-you … you rescued me.”  
  
“I guess that’s why Boss keeps telling me to go meet you bunnies at the portal,” said Red, ambling up to them carrying the board game Blue had dropped. “Good thing I listened. It woulda been a pain tracking that fox down before … Uh. Never mind. You okay, Blue? No ribs cracked?”  
  
Stretch was trying to comfort Blue and examine him for injuries at the same time, while Blue clung tightly to his hoodie. It wasn’t very efficient. “I don’t think he’s seriously hurt,” he concluded. “But let’s get him inside and have a better look. You have monster candy or something on hand, right?”  
  
“Sure,” said Red. He leaned over, placed his hands on both of their backs and teleported them all into the living room. Then he disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the board game on the dining table.  
  
Stretch made Blue sit on the couch and ran a hand up and down his arms and legs to check for injuries. “No pain? Can you feel all your phalanges?”  
  
“I’m fine, Papy.” Blue had calmed down. “I was just scared and—I panicked. Not very magnificent, huh?” His ears drooped.  
  
“I’m sure you would have fought back better if you’d had some time to gather your wits,” said Stretch, not adding that the fox might well have eaten him or chewed him into dust before he had a chance. “But let’s hope you never get a chance to test that theory—I never wanna see—I never want anything like that to happen to you again. I could’ve dusted from the shock.”  
  
Red came back and set a tin of monster candies on the couch within reach in case they were needed.  
  
“But Papy, you—you fought off the fox—you saved me.”  
  
Stretch went silent, looking from Blue to Red. Red raised a brow at him, his grin curious.  
  
“Sans—Blue—I—It wasn’t me. Red is the one who fought off that other fox.” He looked down at the carpet, ashamed that Red had beaten him to it in a crisis.  
  
“Oh. Really? Wow. Thank you, Red.”  
  
“No need to thank me.” Red was practically bursting with pride. “Boss might actually kill me if I let anything happen to his favorite bunny.”  
  
The door clicked and then slammed open.  
  
“Speak of the devil,” said Red.  
  
Edge stalked in, slamming the door again behind him. “Sans! You would not believe the incompetence of—Oh! Blue! Is something wrong?” His ears, flat with annoyance, perked up when he saw the bunny. It was obvious that Blue had been crying; Edge scooped him off the couch and cradled him in his arms, ears lying flat again. “Sans! What did you do to upset him like this?!”  
  
“Me? That’s an outrageous accusation. Tell ‘im, Carrots, what did I do?”  
  
Stretch narrowed his eyes at Red. Why couldn’t he just tell Edge himself? “He fought off a fox that attacked Blue.”  
  
“A what!?” Edge seemed more enraged than grateful. “Who would dare?!”  
  
“It was Lesser Fox,” Red said, all hint of boasting gone from his tone.  
  
“Lesser—then it was all a distraction. But how did they know when to—he must have been watching the house.”  
  
“Never blame on stupidity what can be explained by malice.”  
  
“You’ve got that backwards,” said Blue, peeking out from Edge’s embrace.  
  
“Maybe in your cushy universe,” said Red. “Let’s have dinner first and damage control afterward.”  
  
“Yeah,” agreed Blue. “Cooking calms me down.”  
  
“You’re not hurt? I can cook,” Edge.  
  
“No, I wanna help.”  
  
Edge carried him into the kitchen, favoring Red with a scratch behind the ears as he passed.   
  
Red leaned into the touch, then frowned after him as he left. “Don’t everybody thank me at once or anything.”  
  
Stretch gulped. He couldn’t deny Red had saved his brother. “I—I think we would’ve fought him off between the two of us, but I gotta admit, it was a close call, and you were faster, and—sorry. Thank you, Red.” He couldn’t quite look the fox in the face as he said it.  
  
“Don’t mention it.” Red ruffled the bunny’s ears.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come for the noms, stay for the kemomimi skeleton board games. No, wait, reverse that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a cliff-hanger this time.

“But Edge,” Blueberry said plaintively, “what are we gonna do?”  
  
“I am going to put these dishes in the sink, and you are going to set up our board game.” Edge stood and stacked their plates, looking down at Blue as if he wasn’t sure the bunny could handle even that much responsibility after his traumatic experience.  
  
“No, I mean about the other foxes.”  
  
“You leave that to me. Except for one thing: In the future, Red will meet you at the portal and teleport you into the house, when you visit.”  
  
“Boss, I’m a sentry, not a waiter,” Red protested.  
  
Edge leveled a warning gaze at his brother. “What do you mean by that?”  
  
“I mean it’s not my job to deliver you snacks.”  
  
Stretch bristled to hear Red talk about his brother in such terms, and Edge shifted the plates to one hand so that he could scold Red with the other, but Blueberry interrupted him with a laugh. “That’s okay, Red! I’m sure Papy—Stretch has a handle on the distance by now. He’ll teleport me, won’t you, Papy?”  
  
Not the pleading eyes. Stretch could never say no to those. But he didn’t relish the idea of delivering his brother to Edge, knowing what was going to happen afterward. Plus, Blue liked to visit Edge rather often, which made it sound like potentially a lot of work.  
  
Edge saw his reluctance. “If it’s just you, Blueberry, I’m sure you’ll be safe if I meet you at the portal and carry you in.”  
  
Stretch relaxed. As strange as it was—it even occurred to him that Edge might not intend to carry the bunny in his _arms_ —Blue was probably safest with Edge. Certainly safer than he would be with Red, although it gave Stretch a twinge of guilt to doubt the smaller fox after his performance today. And, honestly, Edge would be more capable of protecting him than Stretch himself would.  
  
“Now let’s set up the game,” said Edge, gathering up more dishes. “I will not allow those mutinous guards to interfere with my private life.”  
  
***  
  
It was a two-player game, so they had to play in teams, whispering to each other about how best to deploy their tiles on the board. Judging by the way Edge blushed, that wasn’t the only thing Blue whispered to him.  
  
“Disgustin’, ain’t it?” Red shifted a couple of their unplayed tiles into an advantageous formation so that Stretch could see.  
  
Stretch wasn’t sure that he wasn’t offended by that comment, since Red’s problem doubtlessly lay with Blueberry and not Edge. “Can’t say it doesn’t bother me,” he allowed. “But it could be worse.” Edge could be swallowing him here at the table.  
  
“No it couldn’t.”  
  
“Sure it could. Remember movie night? They—right there on the couch, he—Well, at least they do it behind closed doors now.”  
  
“That ain’t what they’re doin’.”  
  
Stretch looked at the fox, perplexed.  
  
“Or I should say, that ain’t the only thing they’re doin’.”  
  
“What do you me—”  
  
“Ask your brother,” Red growled irritably.  
  
Stretch looked over at Blue, but the bunny was triumphantly laying a handful of tiles on the board. “Beat that!” he challenged. Edge was blushing even harder, but pretending he wasn’t.  
  
“I think they got us,” Stretch mumbled, playing the tiles Red had suggested.  
  
Red growled, leaning back in his chair.  
  
“Don’t be a poor sport, Red. You win sometimes!” Blue chided.  
  
Red huffed and slid out of the chair, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked over to sit on the couch, not bothering to turn on the TV. Edge watched disapprovingly.  
  
“No rematch, I guess.” Blue shrugged it off. “Unless you want to take us both on, Papy?”  
  
Stretch raises his hands in surrender.  
  
“All right.” He flashed Stretch a smile, then turned to Edge. “I know some other games we could play, just the two of us?”  
  
“What are you talking about, Blue?” Stretch asked. He would have assumed Blue wanted to play “Get Swallowed by Edge” but Red’s words had him wondering if it wasn’t more. Somehow that appealed to him even less.  
  
“You know what I’m talking about, Papy.” Blue blushed cyan. Stretch wouldn’t have thought much of it before, but now it made him suspicious, given how brazen Blue had been about his activities with Edge in the past. “Come on, Edge. Papy, you don’t mind hanging out with Red for a while, right?”  
  
Without waiting for an answer, Blue led the larger fox up the stairs. Edge glanced back at Stretch, but followed the bunny without resistance.  
  
Stretch sat where he was, not inclined to put away the game pieces the tidier skeletons had left spread across the table. Red seemed irritable. Maybe Stretch should turn on the TV, to keep them occupied, and drown out any sounds from upstairs. But he didn’t care much for fox TV. What if he just went home? He could teleport to the portal, and Edge would surely see Blue safely home when he was ready. The main drawback was that Blue would worry if he wasn’t here when he came back. Of course, he’d tell Red he was leaving, but would Blue believe Red when he relayed the message? It sounded just like what Red would say if he’d eaten Stretch and wanted to hide it. Stretch could only hope Blueberry would even conceive of such a scenario. More likely he’d just think it was rude of Stretch to leave Red alone.  
  
Stretch had to admit, Red had been a lot more tolerable since the library incident. He might even go so far as to say he enjoyed the fox’s company, very occasionally, when they traded puns rather than unwanted physical contact. And Red had saved Blue’s life today, after all. Perhaps he should see if he could distract the fox from his clear objections to their brothers’ activities—or commiserate; Stretch had never really approved of the whole thing, either. Blueberry would be expecting him to be here when he came back down, and there was no point upsetting him further after the day he’d had, he reasoned. If Red insisted on being solitary in his misery, he could always change his mind and leave early.  
  
He hopped down from the chair and walked over to the couch, feeling some trepidation over voluntarily approaching a fox, despite how accustomed he had grown to these two. Red ignored him, reclined on the couch.  
  
“Hey, Red. Mind if I put on one of these movies we brought?” The rabbit movies would be a lot more tolerable for Stretch than any fox-produced entertainment.  
  
Red only grunted, then watched him as he set up the DVD player and hopped up on the couch next to the fox.  
  
“Red,” he said over the previews, “I, uh, really appreciate what you did today. And these last few weeks how you haven’t … you know … tried to eat me.”  
  
Red regarded him impassively. “Lot o’ good it did me.”  
  
Stretch’s ears folded back. “What does that mean?”  
  
“I don’t hafta explain anything to a rabbit.”  
  
“Oh. Sorry.” Stretch did not like the way Red was looking at him. “I can just leave you alone. In fact, I’m just gonna go back—”  
  
“Nobunny said you could go, Carrots.” Red sat up and grabbed Stretch’s arm so that he wouldn’t be able to teleport away from him. His usual grin was back, and Stretch didn’t like it at all.  
  
“Nobody said I had to stay,” Stretch protested.  
  
“That’s not fur you to decide.” Stretch was trying to decide if that counted as a pun, but he forgot about it as Red pushed him down onto the couch, leaning over him and tugging at the zipper of his hoodie with his free hand.  
  
“W-what do you want?”  
  
“Come on, Carrots. Lettuce have some fun.”  
  
“Red, no. You promised you wouldn’t—after we got back from the library—”  
  
“A promise to a rabbit is like a broken tally machine. It doesn’t count.” Red licked his exposed ribs, dragging his tongue up his face.  
  
Stretch had let Red get away with this much before, but now he couldn’t stand the idea of backsliding into their old status quo. And Edge wasn’t here to stop his brother. Stretch didn’t dare summon a blaster again after what had happened last time, but he could still show this fox he wasn’t helpless. He formed a single bone attack as a warning shot, intending to nick Red’s left ear, where it was already torn, so even if he did a little damage it shouldn’t be a big deal.  
  
Red knocked it away with his own bone attack. “I don’t wanna fight you, Carrots. One of us is gonna get dusted, and no one will be very happy about that.”  
  
“I don’t wanna fight you, either, Red, but I also really don’t—” He stopped mid-sentence with a yelp as Red leaned down and enveloped his skull in his jaws.  
  
Not this again.  
  
Stretch squeezed his eye sockets shut and bore it as Red pushed his skull deeper into his throat, pulling the bunny into a sitting position so he could swallow more of his shoulders and ribs. Stretch pushed at the fox with his arms and legs, but he’d never been able to overpower or escape from Red that way before, and he didn’t expect it to work this time.  
  
Perhaps Blueberry was in the same kind of situation right now. It might not have been completely unpleasant, like a warm full-body massage, if it hadn’t been forced on him, and if he wasn’t worried about what would happen if Red ever did get him completely encased in his stomach. As the fox’s mouth pressed his arms to his sides, he could only endure, hoping that any second Edge would discover them and make Red stop, make Red let him out, pull him out by force if he had to. But now he felt the warm pressure of Red’s ecto-flesh through his clothes around his entire rib cage, and easily sliding further down his spine. Could this be the farthest Red had gotten yet? He could tell he was upside down now; Red must be sitting up straight, letting Stretch’s feet wave in the air.  
  
Alarmed, he tried to brace himself against the walls of Red’s stomach, to avoid being pushed further in. He was able to pull his arms in and spread them out, trying to take up the available space and get some traction with hands and elbows, but the inexorable force of Red’s throat just forced him to curl up as the fox swallowed his hips.  
  
Stretch kicked, even though it didn’t seem to do much good. At least if Edge saw him kicking, he’d know he hadn’t given Red permission to do this. Surely any second now he’d feel Edge’s grip on his legs, and then it would be only a few seconds before he was pulled to safety. Edge had always stopped Red before. He wouldn’t let Red do this to Stretch.  
  
But nothing happened to interrupt Red’s slow, regular gulps, working down his legs, forcing him to curl up tighter inside the fox’s stomach. Where was Edge? Was he going to be too late?  
  
Red’s tongue pressed against his shoes—apparently shoes didn’t actually bother him that much, or he was just too lazy to take them off this time—and at last he felt his feet disappear down the fox’s throat. A few more gulps and he was entirely contained in Red’s stomach, curled up small and still squeezed from all directions by the magic of the organ’s walls.  
  
Oh stars, how had it come to this? Why had he trusted the fox even for a minute? Because he’d rescued Blueberry? Obviously he wanted to curry favor with Edge. Especially if he was going to misbehave by, say, eating Stretch.  
  
Stretch didn’t panic, though. He’d been through similar things with Red and lived. Edge would come to his rescue, or maybe Red would just get tired of having him in there—it couldn’t be very comfortable—right? He just had to hold on for a matter of minutes until Red let him out, whether because Edge yelled at him or he was just satisfied that he’d finally successfully swallowed Stretch.  
  
The bunny shivered despite the warmth. He didn’t want to give Red the satisfaction of struggling, but the slightly awkward position made his joints tense up, and he couldn’t help squirming a bit to get more comfortable. The minutes dragged on, and Red showed no sign of letting him out. Stretch clung to the hope that it would be over any minute, any second—if it was anything like what he’d seen Edge do with Blueberry, getting him out was a lot simpler than getting him in. It could be instantaneous, although he rather expected Red to make a bigger production of it than just dropping him onto the couch where he was presumably still sitting.  
  
Still, any moment now.  
  
_Please, Red. I won’t be angry. Just let me go._  
  
The ecto-flesh around him gurgled ominously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Perhaps this is the kind of (NSFW) thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12910071) Edge and Blue have been getting up to in their alone time :3


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, Stretch got nommed.

“Sans? What happened here?” Edge asked sharply from the top of the stairs.  
  
“What’s it look like?” Red snapped back from the couch.  
  
“It looks like your ecto-belly is very full with something and I don’t see Carrots anywhere.”  
  
“Got it in one.”  
  
“Wow,” said Blueberry, hopping down the stairs. “He finally let you do it!”  
  
“I wouldn’t say he ‘let’ me.”  
  
“What do you mean, Red? You know you can’t do things like that unless he lets you.”  
  
“Sure I can. I just did.”  
  
Blue’s eye lights shrank to shocked pinpricks as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs.  
  
“Sans. Let Carrots go and apologize to him,” Edge commanded, descending the stairs.  
  
“Can’t a guy digest a meal in peace around here?” Red scowled at his brother, ignoring the remaining rabbit.  
  
“Sans!”  
  
“Guess not,” said Red, and teleported away.  
  
“W-what did he mean by that?” Blueberry looked up at Edge, shaking.  
  
“Don’t worry. I’ll go talk to him. You stay here for a minute.”  
  
“But you don’t even know where he went!” Blue was tearing up now.  
  
“I have a good idea.” Edge could only hope that Red actually did want to be found, because if he really didn’t, there was no limit to the hiding places he could teleport to. “Wait for me here. I promise I won’t let anything happen to Carrots.”  
  
The first place to try was Red’s room. He gave the sobbing bunny a quick pat and then turned to go back upstairs.  
  
The room was unlocked, and although the lights were off he could make out Red’s form on the mattress, his belly rounder and larger than usual. Edge closed the door behind him so that Blue wouldn’t hear.  
  
“There you are, Sans. Let him out right now.”  
  
“No!” Red rolled onto his front, ears pinned to his skull.  
  
“Sans! Let him out!”  
  
Red just growled, rolling away slightly.  
  
“Sans. I will never forgive you if you eat my … my mate’s brother—which makes him my brother-in-law, which makes him YOUR brother-in-law—I will cut you open to get him out if I have to.” Edge’s eye glowed menacingly.  
  
“No, Boss. Papyrus. Listen to me. I’m your big brother and I was supposed to show you how the world works. And one of the most important life lessons I can teach you is that bunnies are for eating, not—not making friends, and definitely not mating with!” Tears gathered in Red’s eyes as he tried to make his brother understand. “Why did I read you that book every night? It’s supposed to teach you that bunnies are food, even if you kinda like them.”  
  
“Sans, listen to me.” Edge knelt down to his brother’s level. “Forget about me and Blueberry for a second—”  
  
“I can’t! You spend all your time with him now. It’s like I never see you anymore!”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sans. He may be my … mate, but you’re still my brother. No monster could replace you.”  
  
“I always knew you’d have a mate someday.” Red laughed sadly. “Handsome fella like you? You could have any monster you want. So why’d you pick a rabbit? As a mate and not an hors d’oeuvre? It’s against the natural order.” The tears overflowed. “I deserve this, to be replaced by a snack, for letting you turn out so wrong.”  
  
Edge shrugged off the insult with some effort. “Sans, have you considered that maybe this is bothering so much because you feel the same way about Carrots? And you’re worried that it’s unnatural?”  
  
“If you felt about Blue the way I feel about Carrots, you’d’ve eaten him weeks ago.”  
  
“That might have been true in the beginning, but is it now?”  
  
“You can’t REALLY be friends with a rabbit, Boss! THIS is where rabbits belong!” Red poked the ectoplasm of his belly.  
  
“I can’t say I don’t enjoy having a stomach full of a rabbit I love,” said Edge quietly, “but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt him, or that he’s just food.”  
  
“I don’t LOVE Carrots!”  
  
“Are you sure? If you kill him, you may never forgive yourself. Of course, that’s on top of me and Blue never forgiving you.”  
  
“If you just eat Blue like a normal fox it won’t be a problem!”  
  
“I’m not going to do that, Sans.”  
  
“You sure? After I finish with his brother here, he’ll be really upset. You could spare him all that. Don’t make him live without his bro. He might even thank you for it. He likes it when you swallow him down, doesn’t he? All you have to do is finish the job.”  
  
“Sans, you are NOT going to ‘finish’ with his brother. You are going to let him out before I lose my patience.”  
  
“Look, Boss, I’ve been having fun playing with my food these last couple months too, but we gotta stop eventually.”  
  
“They are not food, Sans. They are skeleton monsters, just like us!”  
  
“No! They’re not like us at all, they’re …” Red blinked away more tears.  
  
“Sans, please let him out before it’s too late. I don’t want to hurt you.” He knew full well that Sans didn’t have much HP, but neither did the bunny.  
  
“You shoulda thought of that before, Boss! Before you took a bunny as your mate!”  
  
Edge blushed a little. “I … I’m sorry, Sans. I know that must have been a shock. I would never have expected it myself until it happened, but … these things are unpredictable.”  
  
“Boss…” Red looked at him with wide eye sockets.  
  
“Please, Sans. I don’t want you to hurt Carrots, and I think that deep down, you don’t want to hurt him either.”  
  
Red set his jaw and glared. “I have done nothing but try to eat him since the moment I saw him.”  
  
“If you had really wanted to eat him, you could have teleported him into the woods and done it. I would never have found you in time.”  
  
“Yeah? I still could.” There was nothing stopping Red from teleporting out of this conversation if he decided to.  
  
“I’m betting that you respect me too much to do that.” Edge narrowed his eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment.  
  
Red lowered his gaze first. “All right, Boss. I can’t defy you. But if you can stop me from eating this rabbit every time up until now, can’t I stop you just once?”  
  
“Stop me from what?”  
  
“From straying off the path. From saddling yourself with a bunny for a mate. You’re not invincible, y’know. Foxes are already talking.”  
  
“No, Sans. You can’t. It’s my decision and I will deal with the consequences. And whether you kill Carrots is your decision, and you will deal with the consequences if you do.”  
  
Red hung his head, another tear dripping down his cheekbone. “It’s an impossible choice. Either I give in and steer you wrong or you’re gonna hate me forever.”  
  
Edge reached out for him and Red didn’t back away. Edge ran his fingers along Red’s skull, and Red smiled up at him through the tears. “That’s if I survive being cut open.”  
  
“Forget about me for a minute.”  
  
Red huffed in protest.  
  
“What is it that YOU really want, Sans? Tell me this, is Carrots still squirming in there?”  
  
“A little bit, yeah.”  
  
“Don’t you think, if you really intended to digest him, he’d be dead by now?”  
  
Red thought about it. “I couldn’t go ahead and do that before we finished talking about it.”  
  
“Sure you could have. If you really wanted to, I don’t think you could have held off this long. You may be older, Sans, but we’re long past you telling me how things work. Let me tell you how this works. It’s all based on intent—if I don’t want to hurt Blue, he’s safe inside me even if I fall asleep with him in there. You love teasing and tormenting Carrots, but if you didn’t care if he lived or died, I don’t think there would be enough of him left to still be squirming around.”  
  
Red didn’t answer. He looked down at the red-tinged teardrops landing on the floor.  
  
“Please, Sans.”  
  
“I guess … I guess I’m never gonna hear the end of this either way.” Red gave Edge another tearful smile and finally dispelled his magic, catching himself before he fell on top of Stretch, who dropped to the floor below him in a puddle of magic.  
  
Edge sighed with relief, gracing Red with a thankful smile as he reached for the trembling rabbit. “Carrots. Carrots, are you okay?”  
  
Stretch blinked his eye sockets open to see Edge, reached for him, but gave up and curled up on himself instead, sobbing.  
  
“Oh,” said Red, smoothing his shirt into place. “Oh, Carrots. It’s okay. Sorry I scared ya. You’re okay now.” He knelt next to the bunny and petted him, trying to soothe him. “I wasn’t really gonna do it.”  
  
Edge couldn’t help but roll his eye lights at Red’s complete 180 in attitude. “Come on, Sans, he probably heard everything you said while he was in there. Carrots, I apologize too. For letting you stay in there so long. You’re not hurt, are you?”  
  
Stretch made a half-hearted attempt to see if all his limbs were still in place, then curled into a sobbing, trembling ball again.  
  
“I’ll get you a towel,” Edge offered, starting to stand.  
  
“No, stay,” said Stretch, reaching out and grabbing his arm successfully this time.  
  
“Okay. I’m here.”  
  
“I thought … I was gonna die.”  
  
“Yeah,” said Red. “Sorry, Carrots. My behavior _warrens_ an a- _paw_ -logy. You must be _hopping_ mad.”  
  
“Why did you … why did you keep me in there so long?” Stretch’s voice broke with a sob.  
  
“Ahh. Boss had to talk some sense into me.” Red grinned awkwardly.  
  
Stretch looked up at him in horror. “Edge,” he whimpered.  
  
Edge gathered the rabbit into his arms, ignoring all the reddish slime getting on his meticulously clean outfit. “Carrots,” he said quietly. “For what it’s worth, he wasn’t ever really going to hurt you. He just tricked himself into believing he could.”  
  
“Tried to pretend I didn’t _carrot_ all about a rabbit.” Red blushed.  
  
“Let’s go tell your brother you’re okay,” said Edge.  
  
“Wait—wait a second. I have an idea,” said Red. “Carrots, you’ve noticed that your bro hasn’t really been taking this seriously, right?”  
  
“You’re one to talk,” said Stretch.  
  
“Yeah, obviously, I wasn’t taking you seriously either. And Boss probably coulda kept me in line a bit more if he really wanted to.”  
  
Edge glared at him.  
  
“Anyway, I got an idea to show your bro that you were right all along. Whaddaya think?”  
  
“Surely he won’t—now that you’ve actually—” Stretch was uncertain.  
  
“You think he won’t hand-wave it away, since you aren’t actually physically hurt?”  
  
Stretch had no answer for that.  
  
“It’s up to you, Carrots. Because my idea might be a little too much for you right now. It’s pretty _hare-raising_.” He paused to see if anyone appreciated the pun, but nobody did. “But this might be your chance to get some things through that blue bunny’s thick skull.”  
  
“Okay. Tell me your idea.”  
  
“First I gotta eat you again.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red's plan is enacted

Stretch’s first instinct was to vehemently reject the plan, but when he’d heard the whole thing, he couldn’t disagree that it was probably the bare minimum that would actually work.  
  
“And look at it this way,” Red finished. “If I was gonna eat ya—I mean digest ya—I would have just done it already, right?”  
  
Edge seemed to agree. “I don’t want to rush you,” he said to the bunny still curled up in his arms, “but if you are going to do this thing you should do it now, and before Blueberry loses patience and comes looking for us.”  
  
Stretch sighed in resignation, relaxing his death-grip on Edge’s scarf. “Okay ... But do it feet-first so I’ll be able to tell you if I change my mind.”  
  
“No problem, Carrots,” Red agreed amicably. “Guess we should leave your shoes on. I dunno how much Blue saw earlier.” He ran his tongue across his teeth as he stepped closer.  
  
“Right.” Stretch fought the urge to cling to Edge for dear life.  
  
“I’ll just put you down then,” said Edge, starting to lower him to the floor.  
  
“Nah, hold him for me,” said Red.  
  
Stretch gasped as Edge shifted his grip and lifted the bunny up so that his legs dangled conveniently at Red’s mouth level. For a moment he thought he might not be able to stop himself kicking Red in the teeth, but it turned out that he froze, only digging his fingers into Edge’s glove as the two foxes cooperated to guide his feet into Red’s throat. Red murmured appreciatively as Edge slowly lowered the bunny, letting him gulp down his legs at a comfortable pace.  
  
“Are you okay, Carrots?” Edge asked as his brother licked at the bunny’s hips and tail, tongue poking up under his hoodie, making him shiver.  
  
Stretch nodded, eye sockets squeezed shut. “Just get it over with, please.” This wasn’t the worst Red had done to him—he’d agreed to this, at least. But it was so similar to what Red had done earlier—had it even been an hour? Stretch had lost track of time waiting for either death or rescue. In a way, it was good they were doing this immediately after that, though; if Stretch had had more time to process what happened, he might be too scared to do this at all.  
  
He ventured to open his eyes as he felt Red’s teeth close gently on his lowest ribs. It was disconcerting to see Red’s face where his own lower body should be. The fox didn’t have much leeway to grin with his mouth full of Stretch, but his eye lights were blown wide with pleasure. Stretch shuddered.  
  
Red couldn’t speak like this, but he made an interrogative growl.  
  
“Carrots, look at me,” said Edge. “Do you want to stop?”  
  
“No.” He looked up at Edge, but the other fox calmly watching him being eaten wasn’t that much less disturbing a sight.  
  
“You are … crying,” Edge pointed out.  
  
Stretch unclenched one hand from Edge’s glove and reached up to wipe away the tears. He hadn’t even noticed. “I’m fine. Keep going.”  
  
Red rumbled, and Stretch wondered if he meant it as reassurance. Then he opened his jaws wider to let Stretch’s ribs drop deeper into them.  
  
“I’m going to let go,” Edge warned him. “I would recommend you tuck in your arms. Otherwise they will make this take longer, and it may be uncomfortable for you, too. You won’t have much space in there.”  
  
“R-right.” As Edge’s hands withdrew, Stretch reluctantly let go, held his humeri to his sides, elbows just fitting in the corners of Red’s jaws, and crossed his forearms in front of his chest.  
  
“I’m sure you’re enjoying this, Red, but don’t draw it out,” Edge chided.  
  
Red didn’t respond, but he picked up the pace, swallowing Stretch’s arms and ribs with a few gulps. Stretch lifted his skull as if he could keep it from sinking into the fox, even though rationally he wanted to end the ordeal as quickly as possible. And this would all be for nothing if Blueberry walked in before they were ready. So, as terrifying as it was, it was a relief when Red’s jaws closed over his skull, enveloping him entirely.  
  
***  
  
Blueberry couldn’t sit still. What was taking so long? Edge must have found Red, or else he would have come back out and gone to look somewhere else—right? Blue hopped down from the couch, paced in a circle, then hopped back up onto it, drumming his fingers on the arm. He was getting more and more worried. How long could it take to get Red to release Papy? It barely took a second for him and Edge! Were they having some problem? Was Papy somehow stuck?  
  
Finally, Edge came back out, ears lowered in irritation, wiping at his chest plate with his scarf.  
  
Blue jumped up and ran to meet him at the top of the stairs. “What happened? Was he there? Where’s Papy, is he okay?”  
  
“Yes, he’s there. And Carrots is unharmed, for the moment.” Edge paused and knelt down to address him. “You should go talk to him.”  
  
“Okay.” Blue’s worries weren’t eased much at all by this exchange, but he trotted over to Red’s door. Edge had left it open a crack. Blueberry cautiously pushed it a little further and slipped inside.  
  
There was Red, sitting on the floor. Blue hadn’t been in his room yet, but it was a lot like Papy’s, really, down to the lack of appropriate chairs.  
  
The fox watched him come in, grinning contentedly. “Hi, Blue,” he said, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  
  
Perhaps it wasn’t! Maybe this was all some big misunderstanding. Blue perked up at the thought. “Hi, Red! Can you do me a favor and let my brother out now?”  
  
“Carrots? Nah, he’s gone.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Blue giggled even though he didn’t understand the joke. “He’s right there.” Stretch had stretched out Red’s ecto-belly so that it didn’t really fit under his shirt anymore, and even in the dark room his silhouette was clearly visible through the translucent ecto-flesh.  
  
“I ate him, so he’s gone. Just like the tacos you made last week.”  
  
“What are you talking about, Red?” Blue’s habitual cheerful tone faltered. “He’s right there. I can see him.”  
  
“Okay, technically, yeah,” Red granted, rolling his eye lights. “But it’s not like he’s comin’ back out again. It just takes a while because, seriously, he was almost as big as me.” He grinned at his accomplishment in eating something so large.  
  
“What do you mean ‘was,’ Red?” Blue’s voice had gone high-pitched with desperation. “You’re not—you wouldn’t actually—you wouldn’t, would you?” His hands played nervously with one of his drooping ears.  
  
“Wouldn’t what?” Red smirked at him.  
  
“You wouldn’t eat him … for keeps. You wouldn’t … d…digest him?” Tears were gathering in Blue’s eye sockets.  
  
“Why wouldn’t I?” Red answered without hesitation. “I’m a fox. You two are bunnies.”  
  
Blue twitched in shock. “I know, but that doesn’t mean—that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, does it?”  
  
“Sure, we can be friends,” agreed Red. “Just the kinda friends where you get eaten, sooner or later.”  
  
“That’s not—that’s not how friendship works,” Blue hiccuped, tears running down his cheekbones.  
  
“Why not? You read that book about the fox and the bunny.”  
  
“But—Fluffy Bunny was okay in the end!”  
  
“Well, it is fiction after all. You can’t believe everything you read.”  
  
Blue couldn’t allow himself to get sidetracked arguing about the book right now—Papy was in danger! He pulled himself together and stopped crying—mostly. “Red, please. If we’re friends, if you’re Papy’s friend, that means you don’t want to hurt him. So please, just let him out now.”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
Blueberry immediately started crying again, harder than he had been before. “Red, please!”  
  
The fox looked away, maintaining his usual grin.  
  
“Red!” Blueberry closed the distance between them and clung to the fox’s belly. It gurgled dangerously. Inside, Stretch moved—was he in pain? Was Red hurting him? The fox chuckled.  
  
“Please, Red!” Blue lifted his face to meet the fox’s eyes. “You can keep him in there, okay? Keep him as long as you want—just don’t hurt him! Please!”  
  
“I dunno what my bro’s been tellin’ ya,” said Red, pushing the little bunny away, “but inside a fox’s stomach is really not a safe place for bunnies to be.”  
  
“Then you gotta let him out!” Blue sobbed.  
  
“I gotta? I ‘gotta’ do nothing.” Red crossed his arms.  
  
Now that Red’s arm wasn’t holding him back, Blue ran to him again, clinging to his belly as if he was trying to hug Stretch through the ectoplasm. He sobbed wordlessly for a minute. Red waited in silence.  
  
“… Let him go, please, let him go …” Blue found his voice again, his face pressed against Red’s belly, making it slick with tears.  
  
Red sighed. “Why should I? Why shouldn’t I just teleport somewhere quieter where I can digest him in peace?”  
  
Blue froze up for a second, unable to face such a horrible possibility. He looked up at the fox, magic dripping from his eyes and nose. “Wait, please—Please, I—If you have to … If … If you’re going to … You can eat m-me instead.”  
  
“You?” Red laughed, leaning over him. “That would be trading down, don’t ya think? You’re a lot smaller.”  
  
Blue stared up at him, eye lights shrunk to pinpoints, tears cascading down his face.  
  
“In fact, you’re so small, I bet I could handle you both at once.” Red leaned over him, holding him down with one hand.  
  
Blue reached for his magic to summon an attack, but he couldn’t seem to grasp it. He had to calm down. Red opened his jaws and licked him, from his knees to the top of his skull.  
  
“Edge! Edge!” he tried to yell, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t catch his breath and there was no volume to it, it was barely even a squeak. “Oh stars, Edge, save me!”  
  
Red licked him again, slower, letting his tongue rest on the bunny’s face for a long moment. Then he let go of him and sat back. Blue lay there trembling for a minute before he realized he was free and opened his eyes. Red was grinning down at him, relaxed.  
  
“Sorry, couldn’t help teasin’ ya a little,” the fox said. “You know how I like teasing bunnies.”  
  
Blue didn’t move, staring at him uncomprehendingly.  
  
“I’m not gonna eat ya. Boss’d kill me, remember?”  
  
“But Papy—”  
  
“Carrots is a different matter.”  
  
Blue started to get to his feet, crying again.  
  
“Wow, you really got some deep reserves o’ magic if you can waste it on all that cryin’, don’t ya?”  
  
“Please don’t kill Papyyyy,” Blue wailed, falling back to his knees and burying his face in his gloves.  
  
“Whoa, relax. Quit making that noise, okay? I’m not gonna hurt him, not if it means that much to ya.”  
  
Blue kept sobbing loudly into his hands until Red cautiously reached out and patted his shoulder.  
  
“I said I’m not gonna hurt him. What more do ya want from me?”  
  
Blue lifted his face, not quite believing it. He was more of a mess than ever, fresh tears washing away the mix of older tears and Red’s saliva. “You’re … not?”  
  
“Nah. Not if you’re gonna offer your life in exchange for his and all that jazz.”  
  
“Th-thank you …”  
  
“But tell me this, Blue. How was I s’posed ta know you cared, when you never lifted a finger to stop me eating him until now?”  
  
“I—I didn’t think—think you’d hurt him!” Blue’s speech was punctuated with gasping sobs, his hands clasped over his soul.  
  
“Oh yeah? And what did HE think?”  
  
“I thought he was just overreacting,” Blue managed to say between sobs, curling up so his face almost touched the floor.  
  
“Did you ever think how scared he musta been when—well, I guess I can’t talk, since I’m the one that did it to him.” Red gave Blue a comforting pat on the back. “You can have him back now. Ready?”  
  
Blue looked up and nodded desperately. Red snapped his fingers and his belly disappeared, letting a rather bedraggled Stretch slide onto the floor. The taller rabbit didn’t move after coming to a rest. Blue flung himself across his brother’s chest, weeping.  
  
“Jeez, Blue. I eat him, you cry. I don’t eat him, you cry.”  
  
Blue ignored the fox. “Papy, I’m so sorry! Papy, wake up!”  
  
Stretch stirred and then reached up to hug Blue with the arm that the smaller bunny wasn’t pinning down. “Hey, Sans. Shh. What’s the matter?”  
  
“Papy, I—Red, he—ate you, and—” Blue was crying too hard to speak very coherently.  
  
“Oh. Oh yeah, I remember. Always knew that was gonna happen eventually, huh?” Stretch grinned tiredly. “Guess I survived.”  
  
“Y-yeah … of—of course!” Blue glanced at Red, who was watching Stretch with a disturbing intensity. “What—what happened, Papy? What do you remember?”  
  
“He just pinned me on the couch and—ugh, don’t make me relive it.”  
  
Stretch pushed himself into a sitting position, dislodging Blueberry in the process. Blue took a step back to look over his brother—he was bedraggled and slimy, but didn’t seem as upset as Blue might have expected. How much had he heard from inside Red’s stomach? Blue could always hear Edge from inside when the fox talked to him, although other sounds were muffled. Had Papy been listening to Red’s half of the conversation? Did he know how close he’d come to—  
  
“What are you so upset about, Sans—I mean Blue?”  
  
“Me?” Blue squeaked. Papy should be the one to be upset here, shouldn’t he?  
  
“Yeah, you look like you’ve been crying.”  
  
“Uh! I’m sorry, I was just—worried!”  
  
Stretch, still sitting on the floor, opened his arms to invite Blue for a hug. Blue dove into them, pressing his face into the front of his brother’s hoodie—it was already covered in magic fluids, so his tears wouldn’t make it any worse.  
  
“What were you so worried about, bro?” Stretch asked, holding him.  
  
Blue tensed. Stretch was handling this so well, but what would happen if Blue told him Red had come that close to really eating him, permanently? Blue couldn’t stand to destroy his brother’s peace of mind like that. He turned his skull to look over his shoulder at Red, but the fox just shrugged at him, grinning neutrally.  
  
“I—dunno, Papy, I guess—I guess it’s just that he never actually ate you before.” Lying to his brother wrenched at his soul, but when he imagined what would happen if he told him the whole truth, he just couldn’t face it.  
  
“Jealous? You’re not the only one who’s been eaten by a fox and lived to tell about it now.” Stretch patted his brother’s head, which normally prompted Blue to protest being treated like a child, but he couldn’t bring himself to pretend to care now.  
  
“You’re lucky you did live to tell about it,” Red interjected.  
  
“Red, please, don’t talk like that.” Blue squeezed his brother harder.  
  
“Huh. Fine. You feelin’ okay, Carrots? How much do ya remember?”  
  
“Yeah, I just need a shower and maybe a nap,” Stretch answered. “I think I mighta blacked out for a while. How long was I in there?” He directed the question to Blueberry.  
  
It had felt like forever, but if he told Stretch that, it would just worry him. “Oh, uh … a while, I guess. I’ve never blacked out when—Red, you shouldn’t keep him in so long that he blacks out.” There was none of the usual fire in his admonition. He was too grateful that Red had let his brother out alive at all.  
  
“What, like next time? Are we doing this again?” Stretch looked doubtfully at the fox. His voice was suddenly weak.  
  
Red shrugged, but his grin was eager. “Up to you, ain’t it, Carrots?”  
  
“Is it?”  
  
“Sure it is. Blue keeps telling me I gotta ask first, yeah?”  
  
“And actually get permission,” Blue added, still nervous about correcting the fox who had just demonstrated he held the power of life or death over them.  
  
“Yeah, and not proceed unless you actually say yes,” Red recited dutifully.  
  
“Oh … okay, then.” Stretch seemed cautiously reassured. Blue was both concerned and relieved that Red hadn’t included not killing him on the list of conditions. The fox could be so literal about these things, but on the other hand, he didn’t want Stretch reminded that it was even a possibility.  
  
“Was that you saying yes?” Red leaned forward, ears rigid, drooling a little.  
  
“N-no!” Stretch scooted frantically away, dragging Blueberry with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty long chapter for me :3  
> Blueberry is still leaving something to be desired as a brother ^^;  
>  _At least_ one more chapter to wrap things up. And after that, maybe a sequel? Also gotta finish/continue the Cherryberry version ^w^  
>  (And write other non-bunny stuff eventually haha)
> 
> There are some things in this chapter that might not be clear now but will be explained in the next one. I usually keep to third-person semi-omniscient narration, so I can't exposit things Blueberry doesn't know when I'm writing his POV.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stretch gets cleaned up.

“I s-said no!” Stretch tried to stand up and back away at the same time, tripping over his own feet.  
  
Red took another step closer. “Relax, Carrots. I’m just gonna get you cleaned up, okay? Blue, why don’t you go tell my bro everyone is all right in here, huh?”  
  
Stretch looked from his brother, hovering anxiously nearby, to the fox, wearing a relaxed grin. His soul was racing, but he took a deep breath and feigned nonchalance. “Oh. Yeah, okay, sure. Go on, Blue, we’ll be fine.”  
  
Blue looked doubtful, but he nodded and scampered away. Red shambled over and scooped Stretch up into his arms. Stretch let himself relax, clinging to the front of the fox’s sweater, from sheer exhaustion, as he was carried into the bathroom.  
  
“Take off those clothes,” Red said, lowering him gently onto the bathroom rug. “I’ll—well, more likely Boss will clean ‘em up for ya.” He started running a bath, adding a generous amount of bubbles.  
  
Stretch let his hoodie fall in a pile on the rug, then stood there rubbing his humerus in embarrassment. He and Red couldn’t get much closer than they’d just been, but at least he’d been wearing clothes.  
  
“Come on, Carrots, it’s not like I didn’t have my mouth all over your pelvis on that day we went to Grillby’s.”  
  
That just made it worse. But Stretch finished undressing and only flinched a little as Red lifted him into the bath. It was warm—just like Red’s stomach—but without the constant pressure from all sides—and less slimy.  
  
“I don’t get you, Carrots. That was your chance to play up the poor-me-I-got-eaten-it-was-so-scary and get your bro to comfort you or whatever. But you played off like you were fine.” Red took off his jacket.  
  
Stretch looked away, sinking deeper into the warm bubbles.  
  
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Red said as he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater and lathered up a soapy washcloth. Unlike Edge, he needed a step to stand on in order to comfortably bend over the side of the tub.  
  
Stretch lifted his face far enough out of the water to speak. “Yeah, I—I know. I just couldn’t upset him any more than he already was. You rubbed it in pretty hard, you know, Red.”  
  
“Okay, maybe I didn’t need to lick him and stuff at the end. I just couldn’t resist. But upsetting him was kinda the whole point.”  
  
Stretch clenched his jaw.   
  
Red left the washcloth lying on top of the bunny’s skull and used his fingers to comb magic residue out of the fur of his ears. “Now you’ve done it, Carrots. You’ve got a big secret from him—that you staged all that on purpose so he’d have to rescue ya. And he’s got a big secret from you, too—’cause he thinks you don’t know you almost died.”  
  
“Yeah …”  
  
“Doesn’t it bother you that he lied to you like that?”  
  
“Well. Yes and no. I woulda been happy if …” As he said it, he realized he wasn’t sure he would have really been happy, exactly, if Blue had told him everything. It might have just felt like Blue was dumping everything on him to deal with. “Well, lying to me isn’t the greatest, but I appreciate that he did it to try and protect me.”  
  
“You sure that’s why he did it?”  
  
“What do you mean? What other reason could he have?”  
  
“Just that if things go south between you and me, it could have consequences for his relationship with my bro.”  
  
“I … hadn’t thought of that.”  
  
“Well, I’m sure that wasn’t the ONLY reason.” The fox shrugged and dumped a bucket of warm water over Stretch’s skull to rinse off the bubbles. “Sit up a little more and let me scrub in between your ribs.”  
  
“N-no, that’s okay, I can do it.”  
  
“C’mon, Carrots, I’m tryin’ ta make it up to ya.”  
  
***  
  
“Are you sure you want to leave Red and Carrots alone together, so soon after what happened?” Edge asked softly, stroking the skull of the smaller bunny leaning against him on the couch.  
  
Blue looked up at him with sudden concern. “You don’t think he’ll do anything, do you? I—I don’t know what I could even do to stop him.”  
  
“You could always fight him.”  
  
Blue’s eye lights shrank. “But he only has one HP! I couldn’t—well, I could threaten him, but he’d just teleport away.”  
  
Edge waited for him to continue.  
  
“I’d have to dust him on the first attack, before he realized what was happening. And I couldn’t do that to him!”  
  
“Why not? Better him than your brother, right?”  
  
“I guess,” Blue said with a strained frown. “But I couldn’t do that to Red, or—or to you.” He would never have forgiven himself if Stretch had actually been killed. But even if he could have convinced himself it was worth killing Red to save Stretch, it would have been too late by then. His only real chance would have been to hold onto Red so the fox couldn’t lose him through teleporting, and hope he took his threats seriously. He shuddered to think what might have happened if he’d tried that and botched it.  
  
Edge continued stroking his skull and ears. “Don’t blame yourself too much. I should have kept a tighter leash on my brother.”  
  
“Do … do you think he’ll do it again?”  
  
“No,” Edge didn’t hesitate to answer. “But I will be more vigilant about Carrots’ safety anyway.”  
  
“Do you think … Papy was scared? He always said Red was gonna kill him sooner or later, but I thought he was just being dramatic.”  
  
Edge looked uncomfortable. “You were there when he was released. Did he seem scared?”  
  
“Not really, but … He seemed kind of out of it. Maybe he was really scared when …” Blue trailed off.  
  
“I guess you’ll just have to ask him.”  
  
“I can’t—I can’t even face him.”  
  
“Don’t be silly. I am positive he isn’t angry with you.”  
  
Blue was doubtful—how would Edge even know that? “Maybe—maybe he should be, though.”  
  
The fox didn’t respond.  
  
“Edge, can we—?” Blue stood up on the couch and reached up to touch the fox’s jaw.  
  
“I don’t want to do it if you’re going to use it to punish yourself.”  
  
Blue flinched. “No, you’re right. I don’t want to taint what we have. But it does help me to … it’s calm in there.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Blue nodded, and stripped off his gloves and boots. Edge lifted him gently and let his hands and skull slide onto his tongue. Blue giggled, but then went silent; he couldn’t help imagining how terrifying this would be if it were forced on him and he thought he was going to die. Had Stretch gone through something like that? He tried to push the thought out of his mind—for one thing, Red’s mouth was completely different. But when Edge nudged him in a little deeper, his field of vision was taken up by nothing but the fox’s throat—it probably looked about the same as Red’s. The fox brothers’ magic was the same color. He closed his eyes and let the warm magic engulf him.  
  



	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time on Bluebunny:  
> Carrots got cleaned up.  
> Blue got eaten.

  
Once Stretch was sufficiently clean, Red plucked him out of the water and toweled him off. The towel was big and fluffy and only smelled faintly of fox. Red finished by draping it over him like a robe. When he let go, Stretch started to sink to the floor, so he held onto his arms to keep him standing.  
  
“Uh. I should get you some real clothes to wear until yours are clean,” the fox said. Stretch went to the trouble of looking up at him, a monumental effort that required tilting his skull slightly and opening his eyes. Why did Red look so shy and embarrassed about this? Stretch had managed to convince him he could clean himself before the fox had worked too far down his rib cage, but now Red had had either his hands or his mouth on nearly every one of Stretch’s bones, so there was no need for him to blush like that just because the rabbit was naked.  
  
“Can you, uh, stand up under your own power?” Red continued. Stretch didn’t feel like spending energy on fulfilling any of his requests, so when the fox cautiously started to let go, he just leaned into his hands. The bulkier skeleton sighed in resignation. “Okay, then, I’ll … I’ll just bring you along.”  
  
He gripped Stretch’s arms more firmly and teleported them both to his room, then held the bunny to his side with one arm as he used the other to dig through a pile of clothes, finally pulling out a wrinkled black shirt. “Here, this one’s pretty clean—I think. You’re not gonna make me put it on you, are ya?”  
  
Stretch relaxed, forcing Red to support his entire weight, letting his skull loll back. He probably could have tried a little harder, but, he admitted to himself, a small part of him was enjoying giving the fox a hard time. And Red surely deserved it, right?  
  
“All right, fine.” Red looked around for a moment and then just lowered Stretch to the floor, spreading the towel out underneath him. “Hmm.” He tried spreading the shirt out above the rabbit, as if to pull it onto him while he was lying down, then stopped and picked it up again. Stretch noticed that there was some lettering on it.  
  
“Wait, what does it say?” He didn’t trust the fox not to dress him in something proclaiming him “delicious!” or adorned with some rabbit-eating slogan.  
  
“Oh, hah. Look.” The fox spread the shirt out so that he could read it: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.”  
  
“Oh,” Stretch snorted with laughter. “Sans—Blue will hate it.”  
  
Red joined him in giggling at the science pun. “Can you sit up long enough to put it on, at least?”  
  
Stretch allowed the fox to pull him into a sitting position and even raised his arms, and Red got the shirt on him without much further trouble. It was far too big.  
  
“Okay. We should prob’ly go show your bro that you survived being alone with me again. But if ya can’t walk on yer own, it might just worry him more.” He reached out and lifted Stretch’s ears into an upright position, but they flopped down again as soon as he let go.  
  
Stretch just wanted to take a nap and forget about everything, but maybe not here in Red’s room—Red’s scent pervaded it even more than the rest of the house—and besides, he’d still have to deal with all this when he woke up anyway. It wasn’t worth worrying his brother.  
  
“I can walk,” he said, thinking about trying to stand up but unable to muster the willpower to actually do it.  
  
“You don’t gotta. I’m sure Blue won’t mind if you take a nap first.” Red knew him so well. The fox looked around the room. “All I got is a mattress, but—maybe you can borrow Edge’s room.” He reached down as if to gather the bunny up in his arms.  
  
“No, I’m fine,” Stretch protested, batting his hands away. This was the motivation he needed to finally stand up on his own, although he still accepted the fox’s help to steady him as he walked out into the upstairs hall, avoiding the ectoplasm that no one had cleaned off the floor. Stretch was by no means a neat freak, but he frowned at this particular mess.  
  
Edge watched from the couch as Stretch and Red came down the stairs. He looked tense, ears stuck at half-mast, hands clutching his own tail in his lap, and he didn’t stand to meet them.  
  
“Carrots! How are you feeling?” he said as the bunny reached the bottom of the stairs. Stretch wondered if his voice didn’t sound a little tense as well.  
  
“I’m fine.” Stretch gathered a handful of the overlarge T-shirt so that it wouldn’t fall off or trip him. “What’s up, Edge? You seem—on edge.”  
  
“Nothing is up with me!” Edge pulled his tail tighter around himself, letting the pun slide, although Stretch heard an appreciative chuckle from Red.  
  
“Where’s Blue?”  
  
“He’s—here! He’s around here somewhere.”  
  
“Edge.” Stretch’s tone was scolding but patient. “What have you two been up to down here?”  
  
Edge sighed in defeat and swished his tail out of the way. Just as Stretch had guessed, there was Blueberry, encased in red ecto-flesh. The smaller bunny smiled at them guiltily.  
  
“Are you ready to come out, Blue?” Edge asked.  
  
Blue shifted his arm to give the fox a thumbs up, and Edge swung his tail around again to give them a little privacy as he released the bunny. Not that it wasn’t anything Stretch hadn’t seen multiple times before.  
  
“Having fun?” Stretch snarked. “And here I thought you’d be worried about me.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Papy.” Blue did sound sorry, hopping down onto the couch and wiping his hands off on his bandanna before he put his gloves back on. “I just—I—I really am sorry.” He gave up on offering an excuse and apologized again.  
  
Stretch shrugged and pulled himself up onto the couch. “Now you’re the one covered in fox juice.”  
  
“Yeah. I should probably go clean up.” Blue looked down at himself, then helplessly up at Edge. He was too small to easily get into the bathtub or the sink by himself.  
  
“While you’re at it,” said Red, settling himself on the couch next to Stretch and forcing Blue to crawl onto Edge’s lap, “Carrots could use some clean clothes of his own, and, uh …”  
  
Edge opened his mouth to scold Red for not cleaning up his own mess, complete with his finger poised to shake at him, but then relented. “Very well. Come on, Blueberry.” Red had earned a lot of goodwill just by not killing Stretch.  
  
“Carrots and I will watch a movie or somethin’, yeah?” Red hugged the bunny to his side and moved in to lick his face. He cringed away.  
  
“Red! Does he WANT you to lick his skull?” Edge came to his rescue.  
  
Red froze, his tongue so close that Stretch could feel its heat. The fox backed off, closing his mouth without drawing his tongue in first, looking at him inquisitively. It was so cute, Stretch couldn’t help but laugh. Red’s eye lights sparkled with hope.  
  
“No—no thanks. Maybe later?” Stretch had gotten quite accustomed to being licked by this point, but he wanted to see if the fox would actually refrain if he asked him to.  
  
Red let his ears droop for a moment, then put his tongue away and smiled, tooth glinting, as he reached for the DVD remote. “You want me to get my arm off of ya, too?”  
  
“No, it’s fine.” Stretch was too comfortable to move, even if he was cuddled up against a fox. He let his skull rest against Red’s shoulder and fell asleep before the opening credits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could end it there but I have a couple more events I'd like to add :3


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Royal Guard foxes have some concerns.

Neither Red nor Stretch seemed to be able to stay awake through movie nights. Stretch was always up for a good nap, so he might have considered that an advantage of movie night over board game night. But it was somewhat alarming to wake up and find himself cuddled up next to Red, whether because of their history or just because he was a fox. Blueberry preferred board games, because they were more active and prompted the skeletons to actually interact and talk to each other, but this week Stretch had borrowed a new movie from Undyne, so they’d brought it to watch together with the foxes.  
  
Stretch had fallen asleep leaning against Edge, with Red leaning against him from the other side. He jolted awake as Edge stood up from the couch, letting him fall over. Something heavy pressed down on his legs and pelvis, and when he looked down he saw Red’s face. He panicked, pulling himself backward. “Red, no!”  
  
Red lifted his skull, alarmed, as Stretch ran into Blue, who had been sitting on the other side of Edge. “Wha’d I do?” the fox asked.  
  
“Papy, what is it?” Blue caught him by the shoulders.  
  
Stretch looked around, catching his breath and taking in his surroundings. “Oh. Sorry. I think I had a flashback.”  
  
“A flashback?” Red asked.  
  
“Yeah, the, uh, view was very similar to that time when you…” Looking down and seeing Red instead of his own lower body had brought him back to the time Edge had fed him to the smaller fox. But he couldn’t say too much about that in front of Blueberry.  
  
Red looked confused for a moment, then backed away hastily. “Oh! Oh. That time. Sorry.”  
  
“And that other time,” Stretch went on, remembering when Red had tried to eat him legs-first after they had returned from Grillby’s.  
  
“Yeah. Sorry about that too.” Red leveled his ears apologetically.  
  
Stretch would’ve been surprised if Red had actually figured out the specific instances he meant. The fox had a lot of things to apologize for. “It’s fine,” he said. “I know you weren’t trying to trigger a flashback or anything.” With a reassuring pat to Blueberry’s hand, Stretch moved back to his original position on the couch, even though with Edge standing watching with concern from next to the TV, there was plenty of space. Without Edge to lean against, he leaned against Red. The fox was softer than bones under a couple layers of cloth had any right to be. Blueberry crawled over and cuddled up to Stretch, and with a contented sigh, Red put his arms around both of them. Edge didn’t exactly smile at the sight, but his expression softened, and he turned to put the DVD back in its case.  
  
There was a knock on the door. Stretch jerked and held tighter to Blueberry.  
  
“Blue, hide.” Edge whispered an order, and the smaller bunny wriggled out of Stretch’s grasp, hopped down onto the floor, and disappeared under the couch. Stretch wondered if he shouldn’t hide, too. Maybe he could—  
  
But Edge had already opened the door, and Red was holding onto him. If he teleported upstairs now, the fox would come with him, and it might attract attention.  
  
“What do you want?” Edge sneered at the visitor.  
  
“I can smell it!” said a voice, and an armored fox pushed in. Edge gestured, and bone constructs blocked its path, but the fox paid them no mind, shouldering through them to let its armor take the brunt of the impact.  
  
“How dare you barge in here!” Edge chastised.  
  
“Captain, this is an intervention,” said a more feminine voice.  
  
“Yeah, we’re definitely not just here to score some easy rabbits,” said another, just short of laughing.  
  
“Get out of here, all of you! Don’t you have duties to attend to?”  
  
“Captain, we’re just concerned about your reputation,” said yet another voice, as more foxes crowded the door. Edge refused to give them any ground, blocking the doorway with his body and pushing the first, armored fox back. But a different one shoved through the space under the skeleton’s arm. “There it is!” it said, looking around the room and zeroing in on Stretch.  
  
“Which one is it?”  
  
“The orange one!”  
  
“Sans’s friend?”  
  
“Yeah!”  
  
“Get it!”  
  
“Stars help me, I will court-martial you all!” Edge growled, blocking the foxes with more bone attacks. But the fox that was squeezing in past him had a sword, and knocked away the attacks with the pommel. It didn’t look to Stretch as if Edge were going all-out. Intellectually, he couldn’t really blame Edge for not trying to kill his own underlings for Stretch’s sake, but he still felt a little betrayed. If Blueberry were the one in danger, would he have fought harder? Wait, WAS Blueberry in danger, too? There were a lot of foxes, and if they got hold of Stretch, he wouldn’t be enough to go around. There was no way they wouldn’t pick up Blueberry’s scent.  
  
“Hang on, Foxxo,” Red piped up. “This one is mine.”  
  
“Sans, we all heard you call that rabbit your friend. You aren’t going to eat it.” The other foxes were pushing past Edge while he was distracted with trying to fence Foxxo in with bones.  
  
“You got a problem with that, Foxamy?”  
  
“Your behavior is smearing mud on the name of the Royal Guard,” said the vixen. “And rumor says you’ve even infected the captain with it.”  
  
“Hey—” Red broke off. Edge had started it, of course, but Red wouldn’t try to shift the blame onto his brother.  
  
“You mutineers are smearing mud on the _carpet_ of the Royal Guard,” growled Edge, picking up one of the foxes and throwing it bodily out the door. He grabbed another by the arm, but when he opened the door again to throw it out, the first one shoved its way back in.  
  
“Okay, everyone calm down.” Red sat up straight, holding Stretch close. When the invading foxes had come to a stop, Edge crossed his arms and glared at them, but stopped trying to hem them in with bones. “You don’t think it befits a guard—or a sentry—to treat a rabbit like a friend instead o’ food, right?”  
  
“Right,” Foxamy agreed guardedly.  
  
“So if I just eat him, you’ll be satisfied?”  
  
“Yes,” said the vixen.  
  
“I’d rather eat him myself,” said Foxxo.  
  
Stretch clung tight to Red’s sweater and shivered.  
  
“Catch yer own, Foxxo.” Red ruffled Stretch’s ears. “Okay, here we go. Sorry, bunny. All good things gotta come to an end and all that.”  
  
Stretch gave him a small nod. After all they’d been through, he trusted the skeleton fox not to hurt him—more or less—even if Red couldn’t reassure him in front of all the other foxes. It was still alarming when Red opened his jaws wide, right in front of Stretch’s face. He had a great view of his numerous and sharp teeth for a moment, before Red pushed his skull safely past them, not even a graze. Stretch squeezed his eyes shut against the warm moist magic that enveloped him, trying to relax as Red maneuvered his body into position to go down easier. Perhaps he should struggle for the onlookers’ benefit, he realized. He didn’t like thinking that strangers were watching this.  
  
Between Red’s magic squeezing and undulating around his skull and the fox’s hands pushing him from the outside, he was soon shoulder-deep in Red’s maw and sinking. Red’s teeth pressed lightly into the bunny’s hoodie between gulps. He lifted Stretch’s hips so that his spine was horizontal, then tilted down toward Red, and Stretch helped support himself when his feet found the surface of the couch. He could hear indistinct voices, muffled by Red’s ectoplasm and clothing. Edge cut through the noise: “Hurry it up, Sans.”  
  
“Mmfgh,” was all that Red could say as he stuffed Stretch’s hips and fluffy tail into his mouth. Stretch could hear him much more clearly than the others from within his own body. Red kept gulping down the bunny’s legs, forcing Stretch to curl tighter inside his stomach. Stretch relaxed and didn’t do anything to interfere, only trying to tuck his arms and torso into a reasonably comfortable position. He could have kicked a little without throwing Red off, but he reasoned that it would be too little too late, and only contradict the narrative that he’d been frozen with terror and unable to resist.  
  
Stretch’s feet finally joined him in his confinement and he shifted around to minimize undue stress on Red’s ecto-flesh from limbs sticking out awkwardly. “Ooh. I love it when they squirm,” said Red. Gravity shifted as the fox lay back, relaxing. Stretch went still just to be contrary.   
  
“Okay, are you all satisfied?” Edge’s voice was faint but audible. “Get out! If you EVER come barging in here like that again, you’ll be dust! Got it?” There were some retreating yelps, and the door slammed shut.  
  
As soon as the door was closed, Blueberry was pressed against Red’s stomach. “Papy, are you okay?”  
  
Stretch had curled up with his skull facing his chest, so even when he opened his eyes all he could see was his own hoodie died red from the glow of Red’s magic. He tried to squirm reassuringly.  
  
“Mm,” said Red, appreciative. “He’s fine.”  
  
“Let him out, Sans.” Edge sounded tired.  
  
“But we’re so comfy,” said Red. Edge must have been displeased, because Red immediately gave in. “Okay, fine. Ready, Carrots?”  
  
Stretch’s limbs were suddenly free to unfold, and he found himself lying across Red’s spine on the couch.  
  
“Get off me, please,” said Red through gritted teeth. Having Stretch’s weight on his spine must be much less comfortable without his ectoplasm as padding. Stretch was feeling a little disoriented, but he complied, untangling his arm from Red’s sweater and moving out of his personal space. He nearly fell off the couch, but Edge, having locked the door, strode over and caught him, and set him on the empty part of the couch by Red’s feet, almost managing to conceal his distaste at the way traces of Red’s magic were getting everywhere.  
  
Blueberry launched himself at Stretch, hugging him tight enough that he started to worry about his ribs cracking. “Papy, are you okay?” he asked again. “Were you scared? I’m so sorry, I know Red wasn’t supposed—”  
  
“It’s fine.” Stretch pried his brother’s arms loose, and Blue took the hint and gave him a second, gentler hug. “I told him he could.”  
  
“I didn’t hear any—”  
  
“We couldn’t talk about it in front of all those foxes. But it was fine; he got permission first.” Stretch had his doubts whether Red would have stopped if he’d said no, but the situation had called for it. “I’m just glad it worked.”  
  
“For now,” growled Edge, scowling at them from above crossed arms.  
  
“It’ll be fine.” Red sat up and scooted over next to Stretch, tentatively reaching for him to see if he’d object. Stretch leaned into him, so he hugged the bunny to his side. “Carrots or I’ll just teleport the bunnies from the portal to the living room and back whenever they visit.”  
  
“Yeah!” Blue agreed, finally releasing Stretch but staying close.  
  
Edge scowled harder, and by now Stretch could read him well enough to surmise that he was not angry at Red’s suggestion but in fact loathe to contradict him. “They will still smell them on us.”  
  
Blue’s face fell, and Red frowned thoughtfully.  
  
Blue lit up again. “You’ll just have to come visit us instead!”  
  
“Perhaps,” Edge granted. “But we will still pick up your scent. It’s inevitable.”  
  
“You’ll just have to mask our scent somehow,” said Stretch, at length, even though he was pretty sure he could live with just never seeing the foxes again, despite how much improved his relationship with Red was now. Blueberry wouldn’t have accepted that, and Stretch didn’t want to see him lose Edge.  
  
Edge raised one finger in a eureka pose. “I could—! No. Wait, yes! I could catch and release other rabbits, just to get their scent. Then perhaps no one would notice that your scent was consistent.”  
  
Blueberry looked as skeptical as Stretch felt. Red laughed.  
  
“What?” Edge snapped.  
  
“Sorry, Boss, I just pictured you rubbing your face on a fluffy bunny.”  
  
Stretch joined him in smirking at the image.  
  
“Blue?” Edge asked. The smaller bunny remained unamused.  
  
“Don’t you think that’ll be scary for the bunnies?” Blue objected.  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“Wait, I know!” Blue brightened again. “We can ask our neighbors back home. There are lots of bunnies there! And they’d understand what’s going on.”  
  
Stretch sat up straight in alarm, but took a moment to make his voice casual. “That’ll be a really awkward conversation. And we’d need a large rotation of bunnies, so we’d have to ask everyone we know.”  
  
“Yeah!” Blue agreed, his enthusiasm undiminished.  
  
“I hate to impose on you and your neighbors,” said Edge, “but at this point I don’t have a better idea.”  
  
Stretch groaned at the thought and buried his face in Red’s fluffy collar. “Wake me when dinner’s ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foxxo, Foxamy, Foxaressa, Greater Fox, and Lesser Fox. Foxfell is such a sophisticated, non-shitpost AU.
> 
> I think just one more chapter to wrap this up and then--a sequel!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edge receives a surprising visitor.

Stretch was asleep on the couch with Red while their brothers whipped up the evening’s culinary masterpiece, when Edge suddenly emerged from the kitchen, tension written in every hair and joint.  
  
“You bunnies, go,” he ordered.  
  
Stretch heard something outside. Edge must have detected it first, with his advantage of familiarity with the territory and actually being awake. Blue paused long enough to look up at Edge and then ran to join Stretch so that he could teleport them to the lab. Blue dove into his arms, and Stretch made the jump as soon as he had solid contact.  
  
It was a mistake. They landed in snow, rather than on the familiar tile floor of the lab. Stretch had been groggy and thrown off by the differences between the foxes’ larger, backwards world and their own.  
  
“Your majesty?” Edge’s voice from the now-open front door was surprised and awed.  
  
Stretch looked around to get his bearings for another jump. The stars-cursed backwardness of the fox dimension had him land in front of the house instead of in back. Perhaps he was lucky not to have gotten buried in the rock, but ending up right next to the intruder that had alarmed Edge so much was still close to the worst case scenario.  
  
“Ah, this is just what I wanted to talk to you about,” boomed a voice, and a black-furred hand snatched Stretch away from Blueberry before he had quite gathered his wits enough to teleport again. “This is the same rabbit, is it not? Reports of its demise seem to have been exaggerated … or misleading.”  
  
The huge fox—was it a fox? It looked like one, the common orange and black coloring plus a shaggy black beard and mane, but it didn’t quite smell like a fox—lifted Stretch easily to eye level to get a better look at him. He had gigantic fangs.  
  
“Asgore, please—” Edge started.  
  
With a familiar pop, Red appeared in mid-air next to Stretch, and latched onto him with both arms and legs. “This is mine,” Red hissed, as the sudden increase in weight succeeded in pulling Stretch from the larger monster’s grasp. They both dropped into the snow.  
  
“You would steal prey from your king?” the huge monster rumbled.  
  
“He was mine first.”  
  
“You clearly don’t know what to do with him.” The king seemed equal parts threatening and amused. “But no matter. There’s another one right here.”  
  
“No—!” Edge stepped out into the snow.  
  
Red shoved Stretch toward Edge and teleported to Blueberry, crouching protectively over him, baring his fangs (not that they weren’t always bare) at the king.  
  
Asgore chuckled. “Greedy, aren’t you? Go ahead.”  
  
Red, ears flattened with fear and anxiety, glanced from Blueberry to Edge. If they gave him any signals, Stretch didn’t catch them, but Red turned back to Blueberry, picked him up, stuffed him into his mouth fully clothed, and gulped him down as efficiently as possible. The sight bothered Stretch in a couple different ways—was he jealous? This was no time to be jealous. Why would he even—? Never mind. He had to admit that Red could do it faster than Edge could have, both because he was right there and it wasn’t such a tight squeeze, and speed could prove vital in a situation like this.  
  
“Good, good,” said Asgore. Stretch tried to convince himself not to cling to Edge’s leg, in case the fox needed to move quickly, but he couldn’t seem to let go. “But I’m left wondering if you’ve really done it properly. The guards said they saw you eat this orange bunny, and yet here he is.”  
  
“There must be a mistake,” said Edge, measuredly. “I’m sure all bunnies look alike to them.” He wasn’t willing to outright lie to the king.  
  
Suddenly the king had Red by the tail. He was incredibly fast, despite his size. Red hadn’t even had enough warning to try to teleport away. Moving at a leisurely pace now, the king lifted Red into the air as easily as he had Stretch. “It was very daring of you to steal prey from me, not once but twice in a row. But, I must make sure that it’s eaten properly.”  
  
Red was trembling hard enough for Stretch to see it from a couple yards away.  
  
“Your highness, what—” Edge started, then broke off as Asgore opened his jaws, letting Red dangle above his tongue. Stretch’s mind seemed to have shut down, and he could only stare at that opaque, pink tongue, so different from the skeletons’ translucent magic. It was horrible, much worse than Red’s.  
  
Red dropped onto it with a distressed whine, the sound ending abruptly as he slid along it and his skull disappeared behind the flesh and fur of the king’s cheeks. Red struggled, but Asgore closed his jaws around him to hold him in place. Stretch felt as if his soul had been hollowed out. It would only take a few gulps—  
  
“Asgore, please, wait! That’s—that’s my mate.” Stretch had never heard so much emotion in Edge’s voice.  
  
The king fixed him with a severe glare.  
  
“Not—not my brother! The rabbit.”  
  
The king’s eyes widened. Edge dropped to his knees. “Please, sire, I—They are my whole world.” He looked away, at the snow.  
  
Asgore looked at him for a long moment, saliva dripping down Red’s sleeve where his arm hung out between his teeth. Edge met the larger monster’s eyes. Stretch wilted under his gaze vicariously, feeling exposed now that he didn’t have Edge’s legs to hide behind, but couldn’t look away.  
  
After a long moment, the king relaxed his jaws just enough to pull Red further in, with a quick, snapping motion. Edge let out a strangled, gasping sob, and Stretch reached for him, pressing his hand against the back of the fox’s scarf.  
  
Asgore’s eyes softened ever so slightly. He leaned over, parted his jaws, and let Red fall into his massive hand, before depositing him unceremoniously in the snow, dripping with colorless drool. “Very well,” he rumbled. “I know what it is to lose a mate. If you have any more trouble with the Guard, you may send them to me.”  
  
“Thank you, sire,” Edge said softly, surprised, then bowed his head as the king left, retracing his huge footprints.  
  
“Boss—!” Red stayed where he was, shivering in the snow. It could have been the combination of being wet and out in the cold, but Stretch didn’t think so.  
  
“Sans,” Edge breathed with relief, standing and sweeping his brother up in his arms, leaving Stretch to run after him as he took Red inside. At least he remembered not to close the door in Stretch’s face. “Give me Blueberry,” he said.  
  
By the time Stretch caught up and got a good look, Blue had been freed from Red’s belly and was clinging to Edge’s scarf, while Edge hugged both him and Red. Stretch wanted to check Blue over for injuries—and maybe just hug him too—but he couldn’t bring himself to intrude.  
  
“Boss, I’m fine, we’re both fine—you can put me down,” said Red after a minute.  
  
Edge let Red slip onto his feet on the carpet, glaring at him as if daring him to point out the tears flowing down Edge’s cheekbones.   
  
Grateful for the opening, Stretch reached for Blueberry. “Blue, are you okay?”  
  
Now pressed against Edge’s scarf with both the fox’s hands, Blue still managed to look over his shoulder at Stretch. “I’m fine, Papy. Red—Red saved me again.”  
  
Both bunnies looked reverently at the smaller fox. This was the second time he’d saved Blue’s life. “T’weren’t nothin’,” he said, sheepishly.  
  
“You did—very well, Sans.” Edge tried to regain his dignity, but he was sniffling a little. “You’re both filthy. Let’s get you cleaned up. Carrots—can I entrust you with my brother?”  
  
Startled, Stretch nodded. Surely Red could take care of himself, but perhaps Edge would feel wrong about tending to Blue while ignoring his brother when he was the hero of the hour, on top of almost being eaten. Stretch watched as Edge carried Blue away toward the bathroom, presumably to rinse him off in the sink, as Stretch couldn’t imagine he’d want his mate and his brother to share the tub. While the bunny was distracted worrying about Blue, Red grabbed him, pulling him into a chummy embrace.  
  
“Augh! Red, you’re getting that slime all over me!”  
  
“Am I? Guess you’ll just have to get into the tub with me.” Red grinned insolently.  
  
“Red!” Stretch was scandalized. But he couldn’t bring himself to deny the fox anything after what had just happened. “All right. Fine. Let’s go.”  
  
Red scooped him off his feet and pressed his tongue against Stretch’s face. “Oh, wait. I was supposed to ask before I lick you. Can I?”  
  
Stretch sighed. He was already filthy and he was just about to get cleaned off. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”  
  
Red resumed where he’d left off running his tongue across Stretch’s face. “You know,” he said between licks, “I was just kidding about the bath thing. But since you said yes, I’m gonna hold you to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like all Edge's problems are solved by royal decree owo
> 
> I will end this here for now, but there will be *some* kind of sequel. At the least, a short thing set well into the future, but I hope that will expand into a longer thing, and now I'm thinking about it I might want to do something with the time in between this and that first. So, something :3


End file.
